The 2023 Covering Climate Now Journalism Awards Invite Entries From Around the World

Third year of premier climate journalism awards will emphasize solutions and the urgency of action

Press Contact: Colby Kelly, colby@coveringclimatenow.org

Journalists throughout the world are invited to submit their work for the 2023 Covering Climate Now Journalism Awards, presented with the Columbia Journalism Review. Entries should be made through the awards submission page and will be accepted through March 15, 2023. Winners will be announced in late spring. 

Covering Climate Now’s 2021 and 2022 Awards honored work from 74 countries by journalists at outlets including the Guardian, Reuters, Agence-France Presse, CNN, PBS NewsHour, Al Jazeera, Channel 4 (UK), the Los Angeles Times, TIME, Rolling Stone, and The Nation, as well as such smaller outlets as Grist, The Charleston Post and Courier, and The New Humanitarian. Winners of the 2022 Awards were featured in “Burning Questions,” a TV special hosted by Al Roker and Savannah Sellers of NBC News and broadcast on public broadcasting’s WORLD Channel in the US and streamed on YouTube.

In an expansion of honors from previous years, the 2023 Awards will recognize exemplary climate solutions reporting, effective public engagement, and climate inequities coverage.

“People can see by looking out the window that the climate crisis is accelerating, and audience research shows they want to know about solutions,” said CCNow’s executive director, Mark Hertsgaard. “Good solutions coverage is about telling the whole story–both what’s wrong and how it might be fixed–so the public and policymakers alike can make informed decisions going forward.”

We’re excited to see large news outlets investing in telling the climate story properly, but great work can also be produced elsewhere,” said Kyle Pope, editor and publisher of Columbia Journalism Review and chair of the CCNow Journalism Awards Judging Committee. “This year, our submission process and judging panels are structured so that criteria of excellence – not of resources – shape our deliberations.  We look forward to discovering extraordinary journalism by media of all sizes anywhere in the world.”

The deadline for entries is March 15, 2023. The work submitted must have been published, broadcast, or otherwise released during calendar year 2022. Journalists (including freelancers), newsrooms, and journalism schools will be asked to indicate if they represent a large or small newsroom. There is no entry fee, and news outlets are not required to be CCNow partners to participate. The judging will be done by a panel of distinguished journalists from around the world, including winners of the 2021 and 2022 Awards. 

Organized by journalists, for journalists, Covering Climate Now is a non-profit, voluntary global media collaboration whose 500-plus partner outlets reach a total audience of some two billion people.