2009 Awards

Cordner Awards night will move to an autumn slot

The long-running ‘Cordners’ will have a new look and a fresh schedule in 2009 for the 28^th set of annual awards for North East journalists.

This is the time of year when we usually make the call for entries for the Tom Cordner North East Press Awards. After making small adjustments to the format in the last couple of years, we are working on some further changes and plan to make the 2009 presentations in the autumn.

We shall be announcing details shortly but at this stage we would like to ask people to be making a note of their best work published during 2008 which will help them prepare their entries when the new list of categories is published.

The Cordners’ organising team is, of course, aware of pressures and uncertainties in the economic climate, and within individual publications. They mean the awards are getting under way against a very different background from usual and we are adding these to the factors already under review.

But the original grass-roots spirit of the Cordners will carry on. They started when journalists set out to reward skill and achievement by individual newspaper people in the region. They began as a tribute to Tom Cordner, remembered as a great colleague and an inspiring mentor. That kind of commitment and professionalism is carried on by a new generation – so let’s prepare again to toast the best of them with a good night out together.

28 January 2009