Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post wins big at 2 sets of media awards with 4 golds and 6 silvers during its 120th anniversary celebrations

Multiple award-winning infographic ‘Life in Hong Kong’s shoebox housing’ awarded another two golds
Post’s weekly Lunar newsletter on women and gender issues in Asia also scoops top prize, alongside arresting image of elderly patients with Covid-19 symptoms

Hong Kong society

SCMP Reporters

Published: 7:40pm, 20 Oct 2023

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Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post was the biggest winner at two sets of prestigious awards organised by the World Association of News Publishers (Wan-Ifra), taking home four golds and six silvers.

“Life in Hong Kong’s shoebox housing”, an infographic story that spotlighted the plight of people who live in the city’s infamous subdivided flats, took gold at the Digital Media Awards Asia on Thursday.

The piece by Post graphic designers Marcelo Duhalde, Kaliz Lee, Han Huang, Adolfo Arranz, Dennis Wong, and reporter Fiona Sun has also won a string of other international plaudits, including a Gerald Loeb Award.

The team spent more than a month on research, including shooting photos and videos on location, before they created the multimedia article.

The Post’s weekly Lunar newsletter also clinched gold for best newsletter at the same awards ceremony.

The newsletter, sent every Friday, provides insights on women and gender in Asia and highlights diverse voices in the Post’s reporting.

Spearheaded by senior production editor Francine Chen and curated by a cross-desk group of women in the newsroom, the newsletter’s readership grew almost three times between June 2022 and March 2023.

The Post also won two silver awards at the event.

Its revamped on-site subscriber onboarding journey took second place for best subscriber initiative, and the Post’s culture platform Goldthread was runner-up for best use of video for its “City Bites – Hong Kong Edition” series.

The awards were designed to recognise media organisations that innovate in digital media strategies.

The Post on Friday picked up two more golds and another four silvers at the Asian Media Awards.

“Life in Hong Kong’s shoebox housing” again set the gold standard, taking the top prize in newspaper infographics, with “Bamboo scaffolding in Hong Kong” completing a clean sweep in the category with its silver.

Also taking home gold was senior Post photographer Sam Tsang’s sobering image of elderly patients with Covid-19 symptoms.

Tsang’s award-winning photograph showed patients in a holding area outside Caritas Medical Centre in Cheung Sha Wan in February 2022, during the fifth wave of the coronavirus.

Patients with Covid-19 symptoms lie in beds in a holding area outside a Hong Kong hospital. Photo: Sam Tsang

The Post’s other three silvers at the awards were for its Covid-19 reporting, best breaking news article and best feature article.

They included “China’s reopening: the impact of Beijing’s U-turn on zero-Covid”, a five-part analysis that dissected the policy change and its immediate effects; and “Murder of Hong Kong model Abby Choi”, which provided up-to-the-minute updates as news of the shocking crime broke.

The third was for the Post Magazine feature “They braved deadly waters to swim to freedom” by reporter Jack Lau, who secured first-hand accounts of the terror experienced by people who made the hazardous journey over water from mainland China to Hong Kong, then controlled by Britain, during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 70s.

The Asian Media Awards were set up to promote the highest publishing standards in the fields of newspaper and magazine design, infographics, editorial content, marketing, community service, revenue diversification and photojournalism.

Post editor-in-chief Tammy Tam welcomed the news as a “great birthday gift, coming just as we celebrate our 120th anniversary as Hong Kong’s newspaper of record”.

“I couldn’t be prouder of our award-winning journalists,” she said. “They are the best in the business, and this is an important recognition of the fact-based, balanced and responsible reporting we do at the Post.”

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