2021 CJA Awards Announcement

A year ago, I penned (moused? cursored?) a new slogan: '"If it's May, it's CJA" ... awards, that is.' Today is the last day in May where I have no other topic planned, so once again, 'It's CJA'. Last year I ended up with with five posts on the CJA (Chess Journalists of America) awards:-

• 2020-05-26: 2020 CJA Awards Announcement
• 2020-07-28: 2020 CJA Award Entries
• 2020-09-17: 2020 CJA Awards - Part 1 • 'First to discuss the process,'
• 2020-09-24: 2020 CJA Awards - Part 1 bis • [...]
• 2020-10-15: 2020 CJA Awards - Part 2 • 'then to discuss the awards.'

Why the month of May? Because that's the month when the forthcoming awards are announced in Chess Life, usually before they appear anywhere else. This year the May 2021 issue of CL carried the usual full page announcement.

The seven categories and their corresponding awards for 2021 are shown below on the right. Next to them, on the left, is the related announcement from 2020. This allows for a bird's eye comparison of the two years. If you're interested in specific awards for 2021, you would be better off viewing the list of awards on ChessJournalism.org ('Supporting journalists and their love of chess since 1980'), where you'll also find instructions for submitting your own entries.

2020	2021

One feature of the 2020 announcement that is missing in 2021 is the use of yellow to color-code new awards. In 2021, the color yellow is used to footnote award categories, e.g. 'JUNIOR (Under 18)'. Since the highlighting of new awards helps to track the process, I compared the two years and came up with the following lists. The upper case entries are categories; mixed case entries are awards.

BEST ONLINE NEWS AND FEATURES [2020]
- Best Review
BEST ONLINE AND SOCIAL MEDIA NEWS AND FEATURES [2021]
- Best Online Review

At first I thought the 2020 award had disappeared. Then I noticed that it had been renamed and placed elsewhere in the 'ONLINE' list. I don't understand why the CJA continues to differentiate between 'PRINT' and 'ONLINE' awards. In the early days of the web it made sense to encourage the fledgling, often inexperienced, chess writers on the web. Nowadays those writers are mainstream, having assumed the role of the traditional writers. Continuing to account for a superfluous top-level class must place an additional burden on the judges, especially since some of the best writing -- Chess Life is a good example -- is available in both mediums.

The following awards are new in 2021. Note again the 'PRINT'/'ONLINE' overlap for 'Mainstream Publication'.

BEST PRINT ARTICLES (Open only to publications)
- Best Coverage by Mainstream Publication (free entry)
BEST ONLINE AND SOCIAL MEDIA NEWS AND FEATURES
- Best Overall Website Small Organization (website for group of less than 500)
- Best Coverage by Mainstream Publication (free entry)
- Best Twitch Channel
- Best Instagram Feed
SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT CRAMER AWARDS
- Best State Chapter Website

In addition to that last 'State Chapter Website' award, I found two (duplicate) awards with a similar name in the same category. That makes three Cramer awards for 'State Website'. If you run a state website, this year could be your best shot at winning a CJA award.

SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT CRAMER AWARDS
- Best Overall State Website
- Best Overall State Website

I'll end this post with my usual final sentence: 'If you're a CJA member (I'm not), good luck!'