Making a Difference Showcases Brilliant Journalism

The Making a Difference public vote for the best local and national news media campaigns of the past year is set to go live at the start of the News Media Association’s Journalism Matters weeklong campaign on 1 November.  

Campaigns such as the Glasgow Times’ successful ‘Give Our OAPs a Shot’ drive to ensure the city’s most vulnerable received their flu jab and the Daily Mail’s long-running ‘Stop the Gambling Predators’ for gambling reform are highlighted in the Making a Difference showcase.

A vote will go live on the morning of Monday 1 November and members of the public will have three days to vote for their favourite local and national news media campaigns. The winners will be announced on Friday 5 November.

The showcase includes the powerful ‘Food For London Now’ in the Evening Standard and ‘Help the Hungry’ in The Independent campaigns were launched just four days after the first lockdown last year to highlight the added pressure on feeding London’s vulnerable people caused by the pandemic.

The Hull Daily Mail and Hull Live launched a campaign to tell the stories of the crew of the Kirkella – Hull’s last distant water fishing trawler – which was stuck in port, unable to fish because of delays and uncertainty over her fishing rights for Norwegian waters caused by Brexit.

The Guardian’s ‘Dirty Rivers’ campaign has put the polluted state of English rivers under the spotlight and called for action in a series of revelatory pieces.  

The annual Journalism Matters campaign, which is coordinated by the NMA, sees local, regional and national news media titles join together to celebrate the various ways in which journalism makes a difference.  

This year, the campaign will have an overarching theme of the importance of trusted journalism to society, while tackling key topics including climate change, state secrecy, and the abuse of journalists.