Queen Camilla Launches Journalism Awards Offering £2,500 to 25 Young Reporters
Queen Camilla is backing a new awards scheme that will give 25 young journalists up to £2,500 each towards their professional development, with applications closing at midnight on August 26.
The Queen Camilla Future of Journalism Awards are run by the Journalists' Charity, the 162-year-old welfare organisation founded by Charles Dickens in 1864 and granted a Royal Charter by Queen Victoria in 1890. Camilla became the charity's patron following the death of Queen Elizabeth II, who had previously held the role Royal Central.
The awards are open to journalists aged 18 to 30 working across print, broadcast, digital and social media. Applicants must be resident in the UK, employed in journalism or earning their full-time income from the sector if freelance, and must demonstrate financial need. Funding can be put towards training, equipment, relocation, accommodation or travel costs associated with recipients' work.
James Brindle, chief executive of the Journalists' Charity, oversees the initiative. The charity plans to support 25 journalists each year, with the awards expected to become an annual programme.
Winners will receive mentoring or coaching and be invited, along with a guest, to a ceremony attended by Queen Camilla and industry leaders on February 17, 2027. Applications can be made through the Journalists' Charity website at journalistscharity.org.uk/awards.
Camilla's connection to the press world is long-standing. She praised the role of journalists in society at the Foreign Press Association's awards on November 20, 2023 AP News. Her relationship with the media has not always been straightforward. As the second wife of King Charles, she bore the brunt of tabloid hostility in the 1990s, with some commentators declaring the couple could never wed Reuters. Queen Elizabeth II announced in February 2022 that she wished Camilla, then Duchess of Cornwall, to be known as Queen Consort when Charles became King BBC News.
There is a certain symmetry in a consort once caricatured by the press now lending her name and patronage to the welfare of the journalists who would have covered her. The Journalists' Charity itself exists to support media workers in financial difficulty, a mission Dickens would have recognised from his own reporting on poverty and social reform.
For aspiring reporters facing the cost of training, equipment or simply getting to where the stories are, the awards offer practical help rather than a trophy. The deadline is eight days away.
