22 Journalism Competitions That Can Boost Your Career

Film has the Academy Awards. Music has the Grammy Awards. Journalism awards, on the other hand, aren’t televised and don’t include a walk down the red carpet—but they’re no less important to the people who bring home the hardware.

Besides a shiny trophy, and sometimes even a cash reward, awards can be a major boon to a freelancer’s career. Having an award on your résumé and in your biography gives you instant credibility, and may even let you command higher rates for certain clients. Plus, an award can help endear you to the editors where your story was published—an award makes both of you look good, after all.

So if you’re particularly proud of a recent article, consider entering it in one more or of these 22 journalism awards, which are listed alphabetically with descriptions from the awards’ websites. Not all of them will be relevant, but chances are you’ll find one that fits your story.

P.S.: Some of these awards charge an entrance fee, so if that’s a concern, talk to your editor. In some cases, the publication may be willing to foot the bill so that you can both be recognized for a well-reported story.

AACAR June L. Biedler Prize for Cancer Journalism

Application deadline: January 9, 2017

Application fee: None

Prize: Unrestricted cash award of $5,000, a commemorative plaque, and travel expenses to the AACR Annual Meeting, April 1–5, 2017, in Washington, D.C.

This prize is open to journalists who have produced content published in 2016 for a lay audience to enhance the public’s understanding of cancer or cancer research or policies. In other words, trade publications are not eligible. Categories include large newspaper, small newspaper, magazine, online/multimedia, television, and radio. Each submission is only considered for one category.

AHCJ Awards for Healthcare Reporting

Application deadline: The award hasn’t updated the dates for this year’s award, but last year’s deadlines were as follows: Early-bird deadline December 1; regular-rate deadline January 7.

Application fee: Early-bird rate is $30 for members, $55 for nonmembers; regular-rate is $50 for members, $75 for nonmembers.

Prize: First-place winners earn $500 and a framed certificate, plus complimentary lodging for two nights and registration for AHCJ’s annual conference.

The Association of Healthcare Journalists recognizes outstanding healthcare reporting in the following categories: beat reporting, health policy, public health, trade, business and medicine, investigative, and consumer feature. Entrants do not have to be AHCJ members. Once the call for entries is announced, entrants can upload their materials online.

American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) Awards

Application deadline: January 15

Application fee: $15 per article, $25 per book

Prize: Recognition at ASJA’s annual conference

Most awards given by the ASJA are open to members only, but two awards are are open to members and non-members alike: The Arlenes: Books and Articles that Make a Difference award and the Donald Robinson Memorial Award for Investigative Journalism.

For members, there are Outstanding Article awards that include a multitude of categories, such as blog posts, business/technology/science stories, health and fitness stories, how-tos, lifestyle stories, profiles and trade articles. The articles must be written be a freelancer to be considered—meaning there are no staff writers to compete with.

Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) National Journalism and Special Awards

Application deadline: Check back for information on next year’s spring deadline.

Application fee: Free for members, $100 for non-members

Prize: None specified for the main awards, $5,000 and a plaque for the winners of the Al Neuharth Award for Innovation in Investigative Journalism and The Dr. Suzanne Ahn Award for Civil Rights & Social Justice for Asian American & Pacific Islanders

AAJA recognizes general excellence in written journalism, television, radio, multimedia, and even student journalism. It also features separate awards across the same categories for content that covers Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) issues specifically.

Association of Food Journalists Awards

Application deadline: Check back for information on next year’s deadline.

Application fee: None specified

Prize: None specified

First-, second-, and third-place awards are conferred in categories such as best newspaper food coverage, best food column, best restaurant criticism, best food essay, best story on food policy or food issues, best food business story, and best writing on beer, wine or spirits. There is also a student award for best writing on food.

Barlett and Steele Awards

Application deadline: August 1, 2016

Application fee: None

Prize: $5,000 for the gold award, $2,000 for silver, and $1,000 for bronze

Donald Barlett and James Steele are renowned business investigative journalists who, as a team, have won two Pulitzers and two National Magazine Awards. These awards, presented by the National Center for Business Journalism, honor “the best investigative journalism covering money.”

Berger Award

Application deadline: Check back for information on next year’s deadline.

Application fee: None specified

Prize: $2,000

This award, which is given by Columbia Journalism School, recognizes exceptional human interest reporting in print, radio, broadcast, or digital. Writers can submit up to five articles published in a given year that typify their work, along with a letter from the editor indicating the scope of the writer’s work and a biography of the writer.

The award is named after Meyer “Mike” Berger, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for The New York Times. The award has been given since 1960, a year after Berger passed.

Cabot Prizes

Application deadline: Check back for information on next year’s deadline.

Application fee: None specified

Prize: Cabot medal and a $5,000 honorarium

Also awarded by Columbia Journalism School, this prize recognizes journalists who have “made a sustained contribution to Inter-American understanding through their coverage of the Americas.” Any journalist or news executive (including freelancers) who work for a news organization based in the Western Hemisphere or serves such an organization is eligible to enter.

The Cabot Prizes were founded in 1938 and are the “oldest international awards in journalism,” so there is plenty of prestige to be had.

Carolyn C Mattingly Award for Mental Health Reporting

Application deadline: Check back for information on next year’s deadline.

Application fee: None specified

Prize: $10,000

Any journalist at a U.S.-based news organization, including print, broadcast, and online, may enter for this award, which is run by the National Press Foundation.

The award aims to recognize “exemplary journalism that illuminates and advances the understanding of mental health issues and treatments for the illness,” according to the website, and was founded by the family of Carolyn Mattingly, a businesswoman and philanthropist who was killed in a tragic murder-suicide that is still largely unexplained.

The Dart Awards for Excellence in Coverage of Trauma

Application deadline: Check back for information on next year’s deadline.

Application fee: None specified

Prize: $5,000

Dart, which is a project of Columbia Journalism School, is an organization “dedicated to informed, innovative, and ethical news reporting on violence, conflict and tragedy.”

Stories for their Excellence in Coverage of Trauma award can be published in newspapers, magazines, websites, radio, television, or multimedia. According to the website, judges look for submissions that “emphasize victims’ and survivors’ experience rather than the traumatic event itself” and “inform readers about the ways individuals react to and cope with emotional trauma.”

Heywood Broun Award

Application deadline: July 31, 2016

Application fee: None

Prize: A top award of $5,000 and two $1,000 awards for “substantial distinction”

Named for early-20th-century crusading columnist Heywood Broun, this award’s goal is to “encourage and recognize individual journalistic achievement by members of the working media, particularly if it helps right a wrong or correct an injustice.”

While the award is administered by the Newsguild-CWA, a North American media union, non-members are also eligible to apply.

Hillman Prize

Application deadline: January 30, 2017 (opens for nominations in November)

Application fee: None

Prize: Free travel to New York City to accept the award, plus a $5,000 prize

The Sidney Hillman Foundation is a progressive organization that promotes the free press and labor interests. The Prize recognizes investigate journalism and commentary that serves the common good, and has been awarded since 1950. Categories include books, newspaper journalism, magazine journalism, broadcast journalism, web journalism, and opinion and analysis journalism.

Media for a Just Society Awards

Application deadline: Check back for information on next year’s deadline in November.

Application fee: Not specified

Prize: Not specified

Administered by the National Council on Crime & Delinquency, a non-profit research organization, this awards program recognizes stories that explore criminal justice, juvenile justice, child welfare, and adult protection issues.

NCCD “seek stories that illustrate current realities or the promise of reform, especially those that help people understand the complex issues surrounding the nation’s social systems.”

National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) Salute to Excellence Awards

Application deadline: Check back next spring for information on next year’s deadline.

Application fee: $75 for members; $100 for non-members.

Prize: Not specified

These awards are open to all professional journalists and recognizes “exemplary coverage of people or issues in the African/African American Diaspora.”

Categories include newspaper, magazine, radio, television, digital media, and even PR/marketing/advertising.

National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) Awards

Application deadline: Check back next spring for information on next year’s deadline.

Application fee: $75 for members; $50 for student members

Prize: None specified

Only students and professional members of NAHJ can submit to these awards, which consider work in print, online, or broadcast in English or Spanish. Aside from the Latino Issues category, stories can be on any subject matter.

National Native Media Awards

Application deadline: June 10, 2016

Application fee: $25 for members, $50 for non-members, and $15 for students

Prize: None specified

The Native American Journalists Association (NAJA), which is organization dedicated to empowering Native American journalists, recognizes student and professional journalists in a range of categories including best print layout, best online feature story, excellence in beat reporting, and more.

The New York Press Club Journalism Awards

Application deadline: Check back in January for information on next year’s deadline.

Application fee: Not specified

Prize: Not specified

These awards recognize individuals or news organizations based in or operating in the New York tri-state area. Categories include business reporting, consumer reporting, entertainment news, feature reporting, food writing, and more.

The Nellie Bly Cub Reporter also recognizes an individual journalist with three years professional experience or less, a good opportunity for freelancers new to the industry.

Online Journalism Awards

Application deadline: June 10, 2016

Application fee: $100 for ONA members, $175 for non-members, $15 for student members, and $50 for student non-members

Prize: Varies ($500–$7,500 depending on the category)

ONA’s annual awards honor digital journalism, and places “special emphasis on entries that demonstrate mastery of the special characteristics and emerging technology of digital journalism.”

To be eligible for the awards, your story must have been published online between May 16, 2015 and June 2, 2016. Categories include breaking news, planned news/events, explanatory reporting, topical reporting, sports, and more.

South Asian Journalists Association (SAJA) Journalism Awards

Application deadline: Check back next spring for information on next year’s deadline.

Application fee: $50, free for students

Prize: Not specified

These awards are open to staffers, freelancers, and students. Categories include enterprise reporting, business reporting, arts and culture reporting, photography, and multimedia.

The awards either recognize excellence in reporting of a South Asian topic, or general reporting done by a journalist of South Asian origin.

Science in Society Journalism Awards

Application deadline: Check back in December for information on next year’s deadline.

Application fee: None

Prize: $2,500, plus “reasonable” travel expenses to accept the award

The National Association of Science Writers (NASW) established its awards “to provide recognition—without subsidy from any professional or commercial interest—for investigative or interpretive reporting about the sciences and their impact on society.”

Entrants don’t need to be a member of the NASW. Categories include books, commentary and opinion, science reporting, science reporting for a local or regional market, and longform science reporting.

Science Journalism Awards

Application deadline: August 1, 2016

Application fee: None

Prize: None specified

Established in 1945, this competition is open to journalists worldwide, provided they don’t write for a state-funded news organization. The awards go specifically to journalists themselves, rather than organizations, which is particularly help for freelancers.

Categories include newspaper (large and small), magazine, television, audio, online, and children’s science news.

Thomas L. Stokes Award for Best Energy Writing

Application deadline: Check back for information on next year’s deadline

Application fee: None specified

Prize: $1,000 and a citation

The Stokes Award was established in the spring of 1959 “by friends and admirers of the late Thomas L. Stokes, the syndicated Washington columnist on national affairs.” It rewards writing “in the independent spirit” of Stokes, and for the topics that interested him.

Specifically it looks for the best reporting, analysis, or commentary on any form of energy, including oil, gas, coal, nuclear, water or solar. Journalists who work online, in print or in broadcast are eligible to apply.