The competition is the premier contest recognizing and rewarding excellence in travel journalism serving the public with unbiased information and enhancing the understanding and appreciation of a destination or experience. Winners of last year’s competition were noted especially for helping readers to reckon with the pandemic.
Catharine Hamm, president of the SATW Foundation, said, “It is a privilege to share the best in travel journalism. Entries are newsworthy, entertaining, touching and informative. The Foundation continued the contest during the pandemic, one of the most difficult times for the travel industry, and honored numerous journalists for their incredible work serving readers. Now we are emerging even stronger with a new website designed by Michael Snell and a reorganization of our categories. We are fortunate that faculty of the University of Missouri School of Journalism once again will oversee the judging of the competition with Emeritus Prof. John Fennell, Prof. Jennifer Rowe and administrative assistant Kim Townlain coordinating.”
This year, the new categories include Coverage of Diverse Communities and Instagram Storytelling. Also, the Travel Video Story now has subcategories, one for videos longer than two minutes and the other for videos of two minutes or less.
Additionally, the list of categories has a more user-friendly grouping. The Grand Award for a portfolio of work is followed by Publication/Website Categories, Topic Categories, Multimedia Storytelling and Format-Specific Categories.
The contest is named for Lowell Thomas, the acclaimed broadcast journalist, prolific author and world explorer. It is open to writers from around the world for work in English in North American media and on their own websites. There are no membership requirements to enter.
The SATW Foundation is a nonprofit 501 (c) (3) foundation whose mission is to support, celebrate and sustain excellence in travel journalism that serves the public. The Foundation funds the Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition through entry fees and donations, which are tax-deductible.
Since it was founded in 1984, the Foundation has awarded more than $550,000 in prizes to journalists. A generous contribution by Gold Supporter Carnival Corp., the world’s largest cruise company, has made the sustainability of the annual competition possible. Also, a board of 22 directors from the travel journalism field governs the Foundation. These volunteer directors provide guidance for the annual competition and keep the Foundation up-to-date with the changing media scene.
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