The News Awards are judged by up to 50 judges working in teams of at least three around the country.

Every judge is a current or former editor of a News Limited newspaper, magazine, or website. They are drawn from a cross-section of our national, metropolitan, regional and community titles.
At no stage will your work be assessed by your current editor.

The judging process

Judges assess all entries against the core judging criteria of newsworthiness, relevance, accuracy, balance, fairness and clarity. In each category, there are added criteria which are specific to that Award.
To become a finalist, an entry must also demonstrate leadership in coverage of the subject.

The criteria demand that judges look beyond the resources of a newspaper to the essential journalistic skill that went into it. This means that work published in the smallest community newspaper is able to compete on the same basis as that from the biggest metro daily.

There are three rounds of judging in the News Awards, although some winners are decided in two rounds when the decision is unanimous.

In the first round, judges assess all 600-700 entries and short-list the best ones, usually about 100-130 as semi-finalists to go forward to the next round.

In the second round, another team of judges assesses the entries and selects the top three in each category.

These are the finalists and will be announced in early October.
From these, one winner is selected. Sometimes, a third round of judging is necessary, especially if it is very close.

If judges disagree on an entry at any stage, it is sent forward to the next round regardless.
All finalists – three in each category – and their partners are invited to the News Awards black tie presentation dinner.