The first year of the Campus Newspapers Contest on Monday unveiled its 26 prizes for students from eight universities across the country.

The competition, organized by China Daily Hong Kong Edition, aims at encouraging journalism schools in the city to establish student-run newspapers, as well as to improve the quality of campus newspapers.

"This year is also the 15th anniversary of China Daily Hong Kong Edition. To honor this meaningful year, China Daily HK Edition is holding a series of activities to celebrate the occasion. The competition is one. It is meant to encourage students to learn and to assist them to accomplish and make contributions to the society," said Zhou Li, publisher and editor-in-chief of China Daily Asia Pacific.

Zhou said that Journalism schools are the tomorrow of the journalism industry, and the campus newspapers are the best platform for journalism students. Thus, China Daily Hong Kong Edition will continue to support the journalism schools at universities to provide a platform for students who want to join the industry.

Among the eight participating universities, four were local, including the Chinese University of Hong Kong, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Shue Yan University and Chu Hai College of Higher Education. Three of the remaining four are mainland schools, including Shenzhen University, Renmin University of China in Beijing, and Shantou University in Shantou, Guangdong province. Apart from the cross-border universities, University of Macau also entered the contest.

The panel of judges reviewed 130 submissions for this year's competition. The 15-member panel consists of academics from several universities and front line journalists. Vice-chairman of the Hong Kong Press Council Cheung Kwai-yeung, Dean of the School of Communication at Hang Seng Management college Tso Hung, and Honorable Chairman of the Chinese Photographic Association of Hong Kong Ng Lin-Sing, joined the panel.

Chinese University of Hong Kong was the biggest winner in the English news group, winning nine out of the 12 awards and honors among the group. The university took the top award for news reporting in English, with a story headlined Overseas Physicians best Medicine for Doctors' Shortage? The story also won the award for best news writing.

The awards were separated into Chinese and English submissions.Fourteen awards were handed out for stories in Chinese. The English group was handed 12 awards.

Among the submissions in Chinese, five of 14 awards went to Chu Hai College of Higher Education. Chu Hai won the top award place for Chinese news reporting with a story about mothers-to-be from the mainland flooding to Hong Kong to have their babies. The best Chinese news writing award went to Shantou University, with a story about the infantile autism children in Shantou.

stushadow@chinadailyhk.com

(HK Edition 09/18/2012 page1)