During my gap year, I travelled abroad to volunteer in an unconventional way; I recounted my experience for the travel section of The Courier in an article titled ‘I spent 2 months living with an Italian family I’d never met’, the article itself being the second one I’d ever written for the newspaper. I was extremely proud of my piece and continue to love sharing the experience that I had, but it was only until my partner suggested submitting the article to be nominated for a Media Award that I discovered what the Celebrating Success season was.
Purely from lack of research, I assumed that the Celebrating Success awards were like a scary, Toon version of the Academy Awards, minus Envelope-gates and actors slapping each other: only rightful officers could vote your place into a category. Seeing the past images of people in nice dresses and suits sitting at tables before a stage had made me assume that nominees could only be senior members of the media committees, I was unaware of the accessibility for freshers like me. I filled out an application nominating my article for The Courier Life and Style Article of the Year, and even had some friends fill out the form too.
As a frequent victim of imposter syndrome and still new to the journalism world after changing my career path in 2022, being shortlisted for the award was extremely validating. I doubted my nomination, primarily due to The Courier brimming with such exceptional writers and knowing what my application would be contending with, so was genuinely surprised when I received my email headlined with ‘Congratulations!’ confirming my place.
Being shortlisted gave me a surge of confidence; not only in my writing and my degree, but in my abilities to engage with an audience and share my opinions.
Not only were the fellow shortlists in my category all fabulous articles, each detailing important features on topics such as PCOS and neurodivergence, but each nominee across the board are all outstanding contributors to Newcastle’s media landscape, and so seeing my name amongst the community made me feel a part of something special.
I’m really excited for the awards, regardless of the outcomes– I am excited to celebrate all of the hard work that is tirelessly poured into keeping NSR, NUTV, and The Courier such wonderful badges of what the uni has to offer, and can’t wait to to see the reactions of everyone awarded for their achievements.
I still have no idea what I am wearing though… there are only so many hours I can spend scrolling through Vinted.
(Editor note: We are very happy to announce that Sophie won the award! Congratulations!)