$5000 KURT SCHORK AWARD in International Journalism | WUIN

Deadline: 14th July 2026

The Freelance Award is open to journalists who travel the world’s conflict zones, usually at great personal risk, to witness and report on the impact and consequences of these events.

APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS

• Entrants to the Freelance Award must submit three articles each.
• The submitted articles must have been published between June 01, 2025 and June 14, 2026.
• Accepted media: any print-based medium, such as newspapers and magazines, or established online publications. Blogs, personal websites and social media pages or channels are not accepted.
• Articles can encompass war reporting, human rights issues, cross-border troubles, corruption or other controversial matters impacting on people’s lives. Judges will be looking for professionalism, high journalistic standards, and evidence of dedication and courage in obtaining the story.
• Because of problems with scanned entries and failed links in previous years, we require that each article be provided as a text file – MS Word (.doc or .docx) or similar text format (.rtf), or a PDF of a text file.
• You may supply a URL link to your article(s), or a scan (as a PDF or JPG file) as supporting evidence of the publication context, but your entry will be disqualified if you do not also submit the required text files.

Additional material you must provide:

• A CV or resumé about your education and journalism career.
• A passport-quality photo (JPEG, GIF or PNG file, size no larger than 250Kb) of yourself.
• A high-standard English translation if the original articles are not in English.
• A short statement explaining what you had to do to get the story.

Please note the maximum file size for text submissions or scans is 5Mb. Entrants must complete the online entry form (or a PDF for printing and posting if not possible).

FAQs and enquiries:

Please see here for our FAQs. If you have any further questions about the Awards process, please email enquiries@ksmfund.org.

HOW TO APPLY

APPLY HERE

About the Kurt Schork Memorial Fund

In the shock of the immediate aftermath of Kurt’s death, his family and friends were comforted by the rapid rallying of colleagues wanting to join in establishing a tangible legacy promoting the ideals by which he had lived and worked.

Kurt’s closest bond was with those reporters he had come to greatly admire in the field: fellow freelancers and the often poorly paid and seldom-credited local reporters covering their own home countries. The idea of creating an annual awards programme to honour these journalists was quickly formed, but how to pay for it?

Reuters – the agency for which Kurt was on assignment when he died – stepped in with a start-up sum, immediately reinforced by contributions from many individuals and other organisations. The Kurt Schork Memorial Fund was born.

A number of committed contributors have continued to ensure the Fund remains capable of supporting the awards program. In the past, it has even allowed for the provision of scholarship support to several journalism students. While this kind of generous commitment is inherent among Kurt’s friends, family and colleagues, the Fund also greatly appreciates the support of others who did not know Kurt but who set high value on the principles he embodied. We welcome receiving donations and other support for our work, from individuals as well as from leading corporations and foundations.

About Taskrika

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