All the finalists in the 2004 Mondi Shanduka Newspaper Awards

The Mondi Shanduka Newspaper Awards are one of South Africa's most prestigious newspaper journalism competitions where journalists are benchmarked against their peers by a panel of top quality and highly credible judges. It is the only newspaper journalism award to be endorsed by the Newspaper Association of South Africa.

Professor Guy Berger, convenor of the judging panel and head of the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University, notes, "The exciting events of the past year have come through clearly in the written and visual entries, and there were also stories that showed up South Africa's trends and hidden dynamics. There was impressive follow up in many cases."

He adds, "There was a significant number of entries by teams of reporters working on a given story, reflecting a welcome investment of human resources into quality coverage by South Africa's newsrooms. While many entries have room for improvements, there were also refreshing instances of thorough, clever and insightful writing, graphics and layout."

Berger was part of a distinguished panel of judges comprising Sarah Crowe (media officer at UNICEF), Johan de Wet (former editor of Rapport), Ethel Hazelhurst (financial journalist), Zubeida Jaffer (freelance writer and former head of Independent Newspapers' parliamentary bureau), Portia Kobue (news editor of Kaya FM), Peter Magubane (renowned veteran South African photojournalist), Sbu Mngadi (chief corporate and strategy officer at Cell C), Ken Owen (former Sunday Times editor) and Joe Thloloe (head of news at e-tv).

Judges nominated the following journalists as finalists in the BREAKING NEWS category: Beeld's Adriaan Basson, Dries Liebenberg, Jan-Jan Joubert for their article "Samaritaan of skurk?", Jonathan Ancer and Solly Maphumulo for "Too dirty to live" in The Star and Lizel Steenkamp, Adriaan Basson, Andre Janse van Vuuren of Beeld for "Waar's haar ontvoerders?"

In the ANALYSIS, FOLLOW-UPS AND COMMENTARY category, the finalists are Philip de Bruin of Beeld for "Om te skiet of nie te skiet nie", Sunday Times' Fred Khumalo and Rowan Philp for "America Divided" and Johann Maarman for "Koffie, kondensmelk en bruinsuiker" in Rapport.

The finalists in the FEATURE WRITING category are Jonathan Ancer of The Star for "He is drunk, or stoned, or both . This is the hope of a dying nation", Vicki Robinson for "Strangers in a new land" in Mail & Guardian and Susan Winters' for her "Hamba Kamnandi" column in Daily Dispatch.

No finalists have been nominated in the INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM category.

Finalists in the CREATIVE JOURNALISM category are Neels Blom of Business Day for "Fly fishing on Wednesday", Die Burger's Willemien Brummer for a series of pieces in her column "Oop Kaarte" and Jeremy Gordin of Sunday Independent for his pieces in the "Karen Bliksem" columns.

There are just two finalists in the GRAPHICAL JOURNALISM section: Jonathan "Zapiro" Shapiro for his cartoon "Bush, Mugabe, van Schalkwyk and Brenda Fassie" and Anton Vermeulen of Naweek-Beeld for "Slawe van genetika"; "'n Ruimer kerk-huis" and "Skrif aan die muur".

The finalists in the NEWS PHOTOGRAPHS category are: Sharief Jaffer of Rapport for "2010: Die verhaal van twee sirkusse", Steve Lawrence of The Star for "The strong arm of the law" and James Oatway for "Miracle baby born amid chaos in central Jo'burg on New Year's Eve" in ThisDay.

In the FEATURE PHOTOGRAPHS section, the judges have nominated The Star's Neo Ntsoma for "The toughest women in South Africa" and Die Burger's Simone Scholtz for "Vissers van wense".

The three finalists in the PRESENTATION section are Glenn Bownes for "Thanks for calling me a liar" in Cape Times, Andries Gouws of Beeld for "Die Party is verby" and Die Burger's Arlene Prinsloo for "55 000+ met natuur se krag van aarde gespoel".

The winner in the South African Story of the Year as well as the Lifetime Achiever Award will be honoured with winners and finalists of the Mondi Shanduka Newspaper Awards at a ceremony on 20 April 2005 at the Sandton Sun.