The sidney prize is an award given to outstanding investigative journalism that exposes social and economic injustices. It is named for the late journalist Sidney Cox, who devoted much of his life to advancing equal rights for African Americans. A group of his friends raised funds with the goal of establishing an annual prize in his name for that undergraduate piece of writing which most nearly meets the high standards of originality and integrity that he himself set both for himself and for his students.
Winners will be announced at the end of the month and prizes must be claimed within 3 months of winning. The chess club will not hold any unclaimed prizes for longer than this period and any prize money that is not redeemed will be reinvested in promoting chess in Sydney. Prizes are awarded according to ACF ratings and unrated players are not eligible for rating prizes.
New York Times columnist David Brooks recently unveiled his 2020 selections for the prestigious Sidney Awards, which highlight the year’s best long-form essays. His choices – including Hilton Als writing for The New York Times, Ed Yong writing for The Atlantic, and others at top-tier national publications – make the case that writers at the uppermost echelons of publishing are making their mark in our most vital debates on morality, politics, and culture.
In 2024, the Foundation named Phillipe Sands KC as the recipient of the George Barrett Award. The award honors individuals whose professional careers embody the spirit of the late Founder of the firm, who dedicated himself to representing clients who did not have the means or power to secure their basic civil rights and address the legacies of colonialism and other forms of environmental injustice.
The prestigious Sidney Prize was established in 1997 by the Committee of the Sydney Mechanics School of Arts in memory of Maxwell E. Arthur, President of the Committee. The prize consists of a cash prize and an honourary certificate designed by the New York artist Edward Sorel. The winner is announced monthly and nominations are due by the end of each month for journalism that appeared in the previous month. Nominations may be submitted by email, fax or by post. The prize is sponsored by Overland and is supported by the Sidney Hillman Foundation. This year’s winner was Canadian journalists Robert Fife and Steven Chase for their coverage of foreign interference in the country’s politics, which sparked a national debate and dominated the news agenda. They received the print/digital Sidney Prize and a $10,000 cash award. For more information on the Sidney Prize, please visit www.sidneyprize.com. For a list of past winners, please click here. The deadline for the 2024 Sidney Prize is December 31, 2019. The finalists will be notified in January 2025 and the winner will be announced in March 2026. The finalist for the 2023 Neilma Sidney Short Story Prize will be published in Overland and two runners-up will receive $750 each.