Your paper of choice is proudly Zululand

THE Zululand Observer has a proud history of excellence since its inception in 1969.

We have over the years won countless awards for superior editorial coverage and quality, advertising distinction, and design and layout excellence.

Most of these have been at annual award ceremonies for the Caxton media stable, to which we are affiliated.

Last week, however, we were honoured at the Forum for Community Journalists Avbob Excellence Awards.

These were purely for editorial entries and were open to all community newspaper groups in the country.

We were proud to have been invited to the awards ceremony in Johannesburg after being nominated as finalists in every category we entered.

External judges, who were extremely complimentary in their announcements of winners, placed us first and second in one category and first in another, as can be seen in an article elsewhere in this edition.

These honours are not easily accomplished and are evidence of editorial offerings that are not merely linguistically and factually correct, but add value to the ‘conversation’ of our communities.

We are mindful of our position as influencers in our community as we strive to be open-minded, fair and accurate in our news coverage.

In this instance, the winning submissions were in the selfinitiated, editorial opinion domain, as opposed to reporting on events and incidents.

The judges were clearly of the opinion that we are in touch with our readers and have our fingers on the community pulse, and that we addressed important topics skillfully.

As with all newspaper competitions, there is great value in benchmarking ourselves against the best in the country, and it is both gratifying and humbling to have been winners.

It validates our belief that our editorial integrity, insight and sheer hard work are not only a reward in itself, but something others can also confirm and appreciate.

We will continue to not only produce fine newspapers for our own vested interests, but also for the benefit of our communities whom we trust we have made proud.

You can with added confidence trust us with all your multimedia requirements.