The National Lottery is named as sponsor of Local Ireland awards

THE National Lottery has been announced as sponsors of the Local Ireland Media Awards 2018.

The awards honour the talents of the hundreds of journalists, photographers, designers and advertising executives involved in producing local weekly titles in both print and digital format every week.

Local Ireland is the voice and representative association for 45 local weekly titles across the country, offering local news to 1.5m readers each week outside Dublin and Cork.

The awards, now in their third year, will feature 14 categories spanning all areas and disciplines of modern journalism including news, sport, features, advertising, design and online.

This year there will be a special category for the journalist or newspaper that has given the best coverage to a National Lottery Good Cause beneficiary.

The 2018 judging panel will be chaired by Kevin Rafter, professor of political communication, and head of the School of Communications at DCU. Other judges include journalist and broadcaster Caroline Murphy; award-winning photographer and picture editor Frank Miller; broadcaster and author Valerie Cox; Andrew Sinclair, deputy managing director, OMD, and Anthony Quigley, Digital Marketing Institute.

Content published during the period February 2017  January 2018 is eligible for entry.

Awards entries will be accepted via the Local Ireland website www.localireland.info until Friday March 2nd. The awards dinner takes place in the Radisson Blu Hotel, Athlone, Co. Westmeath, on Thursday May 24th 2018.