Anna Lena Mehr, Manager of Contests at the World Press Photo Foundation, says:
“We are honored to have such accomplished and inspiring individuals chairing the 2020 Digital Storytelling Contest and Photo Contest juries. Zoeann Murphy and Lekgetho Makola both have an impressive expertise in their field and have demonstrated a commitment to diversity and ethical storytelling during their career. We are confident they will lead this year’s contests with the values essential to the World Press Photo Foundation.”
Zoeann Murphy, United States, is a visual journalist on staff at The Washington Post. She reports largely on humanitarian and environmental issues, as well as covering breaking news. In addition to her work as a visual journalist, Murphy also facilitates photography workshops that provide the tools and opportunities for underrepresented communities to share their own stories in their own way.
Reflecting on her role as 2020 Digital Storytelling Contest jury chair, Zoeann Murphy said:
“It’s an incredible honor to chair the 2020 World Press Photo Digital Storytelling Contest jury. I’m excited to be a part of recognizing the important work done by visual journalists around the world. The amount of good digital storytelling being produced right now is astonishing and it’s an important contribution to democracy.
This year, I’d love to see more entries by digital storytellers covering their own communities and I hope to continue seeing strong accountability pieces that speak truth to power. I want entrants to know how valued their work is. I think some digital storytellers might be intimidated to enter their work. I hope they do it anyway. The more diverse viewpoints in the work we see the better.”
Zoeann Murphy will be joined by a group of professionals in Amsterdam in February 2020 to judge the entries. The full jury will be announced later this year.
Learn more about the 2020 Digital Storytelling Contest.
Lekgetho Makola, South Africa, is the head of Market Photo Workshop in Johannesburg, a space for culture and development through photography. He co-founded Kali TV in 2012, an online media platform reporting news on Diaspora communities in the United States, and is a founding member of Parallel Film Collective, a non-profit organization focusing on 'Local Equals Global' film culture. He also founded an independent production company KGETHI IMAGES (Pty) Ltd in 2014, and is an active member of the virtual continental network Centers of Learning for Photography in Africa.
Lekgetho Makola reflected on his role as 2020 Photo Contest jury chair:
“It is a significant responsibility to have an oversight of the jury and ensure that the judging process goes as smooth as possible, but also that a state of critical engagement accounting for diversity is allowed, in order to respond to submissions in the most ethical manner and in a way that reflects the global society.
I would love to see more submissions by photographers from outside of Europe and North America, and a good amount of time for jury members to share views on diversity before the judging commences. I strongly believe there is a lot to learn from each other in that process, and a lot to unlearn concerning certain socially constructed views on the practice.”
The judging process for the 2020 Photo Contest involves four specialized juries and a general jury. It will take place in several rounds over a three-week period during January and February 2020. The full jury will be announced later this year.
Learn more about the 2020 Photo Contest.
The 2020 Digital Storytelling Contest marks the 10th edition of the contest, first introduced in 2011 by the World Press Photo Foundation as the ‘Multimedia Contest’. The contest, open to short documentary film and interactive productions, was launched as a way to recognize and reward forms of visual storytelling enabled by digital technologies. These technologies have transformed the way we produce and consume stories and continue to shape the future of the media economy.
In its first decade, the contest has grown from 42 nominations in 2011 to 300 entries in 2019, and awards have changed in response to developments in the industry. Last year, for the 2019 Digital Storytelling Contest, the World Press Photo Foundation introduced two headline awards, the World Press Photo Interactive of the Year and the World Press Photo Online Video of the Year.
The World Press Photo Foundation hopes the 10th Digital Storytelling Contest will help draw even more attention to the diversity of formats made possible by digital platforms and the constant developments in documentary film and interactive storytelling.
The World Press Photo Foundation is campaigning to attract a more representative range of submissions to both contests, focusing particularly on increasing the number of participants coming from countries currently underrepresented in the contests, and growing entries from female visual journalists. This year’s campaign also aims to boost the amount and quality of the work entered in the Portraits category of the Photo Contest.
“It is important for us to improve representation from underrepresented regions to encourage a diversity of perspectives and to showcase stories offering a more comprehensive representation of our world. For example, last year only 8% of World Press Photo Contest winners were from African countries and 5% from South American countries,” says Mehr.
The 2019 Photo Contest saw a significant increase in the number of winners identifying as female, from 12% in 2018 to 32% in 2019. In addition to better gender representation amongst winners, the Photo Contest had a 3% increase in entrants identifying as female (16% in 2018 compared to 19% in 2019). The 2019 Digital Storytelling Contest showed a gender balance of 53% identifying as women, and 47% identifying as men (represented by the main visual journalist).
“There is still work to do on increasing these numbers, but it shows that our outreach campaign is starting to work. Improving diversity is important to us, it will take time, and we are committed to it,” explains Mehr.
In the coming weeks, the World Press Photo Foundation will reach out personally to its network, including former jury members and winners, partners and organizations, and start a social media campaign in an attempt to further improve the diversity of the entrants.
Both the 2020 Digital Storytelling Contest and 2020 Photo Contest will open for submissions on 2 December 2019. Entering the contests is free and open to all professional visual journalists around the world.
Like last year, the 2020 Contest major awards are the ‘World Press Photo of the Year’ and the ‘World Press Photo Story of the Year’ for the Photo Contest; and ‘World Press Photo Interactive of the Year’ and the ‘World Press Photo Online Video of the Year’ for the Digital Storytelling Contest. These awards carry a cash prize of €10,000 each.
All contest winners will share in prizes totalling more than €130,000 in value.
Nominees for both contests will be announced on 25 February 2020.
Find out more about the 2020 Contests.
Image credits (left to right):
Zoeann Murphy by © Sarah Voisen
Lekgetho Makola by © Thandile Zwelibanzi
For additional information or interview requests, please contact our Communications Team: communications@worldpressphoto.org
