The Hong Kong Prize is an annual award presented by the Hong Kong Journalists’ Association to recognize local journalists for outstanding work across print, television, radio and online journalism. A panel of judges selects their winner at an awards ceremony; then prize money is distributed via cheque presentation at that ceremony. Furthermore, this prize also serves to foster professional standards within journalism.
The Prize is Asia’s highest honor for newspaper features, and has been won by some of the region’s most talented journalists. It’s intended as recognition of their efforts, while we hope its prize money encourages young reporters to strive towards excellence in journalism.
This year, our judges have chosen two winning articles by young Hong Kong writers as winners of the 2018 Prize: Wong Yuk-yuk from University of Hong Kong’s School of Business and Management wrote “Spiritual Transformation in an Era of Globalization”, while Samantha Lee from City University Hong Kong provided “The Changing Landscape of the Hong Kong Film Industry”. Congratulations to both!
Hong Kong had nine artists represent themselves on this year’s shortlist for Art Prize, making it its highest representation ever. Pakistani artist Sameen Agha took home the grand prize with her red marble sculpture A Home is a Terrible Place to Love which suggests dismantled house fragments. Chinese artist Jiehua Zhou won first runner-up with her mixed media piece Red Bean Stalk while Philippine artist Demet’s acrylic Painting Paint Palette Emulation won Public Voting prize.
Longines Hong Kong International Races have seen increased prize money due to the success of several former runners, such as champion jockey Andrew Harding on his comeback ride in the BMW Hong Kong Derby. Both FWD Champions Day at Sha Tin and BMW Hong Kong Derby both now boast increased purses of about HK$100 Million each.
BMW Hong Kong International Cup prize pool has increased substantially, now featuring a massive HK$10 million pool for first and second places of its race held annually at Happy Valley. Attracting some of the finest horses worldwide, it has become a highlight on horse racing calendar.
HKJC is increasing prize money at several other events this month, including its Mark Six Chinese New Year Snowball draw expected to offer an estimated jackpot of up to HK$188 million and prize funds for Quartet & First 4 Merged Pool as well as seven other race meetings scheduled during February. To ensure fairness during each draw, employees in its security and customer service departments regularly inspect materials used during its production from boxing machine use through to drawing machine use; additionally balls are measured, weighed and examined using X-Ray before each draw takes place.
