Young journalists from Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and — for the first time — Southeast Asia were honored for their work at the annual Campus News Awards, with officials and industry figures calling on them to serve as storytellers.

The Campus News Awards 2026, organized by China Daily Hong Kong, unveiled its latest results in Shenzhen, a city preparing to host the 2026 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting next month. More than 300 guests attended the presentation ceremony at The Chinese University of Hong Kong's Shenzhen Research Institute (SZRI), including government officials, student and teacher representatives, experts and university professors from across the Taiwan Strait and the Hong Kong and Macao SARs.

Calls to hone journalism skills

Hong Kong Deputy Chief Secretary for Administration Cheuk Wing-hing, speaking at the ceremony, encouraged students to develop both the hard knowledge and soft skills of the journalism profession and to serve as storytellers.

"We are now at the golden era, with the opening year of the nation's 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) and further elevating high-level opening-up. The news media, in particular, must give full play to its international communication power and competitiveness, to contribute to expanding the international circle of friends," he said.

Cheuk said he has always believed that whether journalism is presented through text, images or other media, its value lies in recording the changes of the times, chronicling social conditions and public sentiment, and building an information bridge for people-to-people exchange across the international community and for mutual learning among civilizations. He encouraged students to continue to serve as a bridge between Chinese and Western cultures and to make good use of innovative technologies in reporting.

Record participation

China Daily Deputy Editor-in-Chief Liu Weiling said the awards recognize outstanding young students and aim to build a bridge for deepening young people's exchanges and promoting the integration of technology and culture against the backdrop of an open, innovative and cooperative Asia-Pacific region.

Liu said more than 100 universities and over 3,000 students took part in this year's competition, with the number of submitted works exceeding 1,000 for the first time.

This year marks the 15th edition of the awards, which for the first time invited universities from Southeast Asia to participate, Liu said, adding that students' topics are more closely aligned with the times.

"In the face of profound changes brought by new technologies such as artificial intelligence, we have seen young journalism students' keen insight, critical spirit of daring to question, and genuine humanistic care for the world," Liu said.

Technology and credibility

Albert Chow Hing-pong, vice-president (administration) of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said the submitted works demonstrate students' social insight and innovative spirit, reflecting their passion and optimism for the journalism profession.

"Currently, global development has undergone profound changes, and technology is reshaping the media ecosystem. I hope students will continue to serve as a bridge between Chinese and Western cultures, tell the world a true and comprehensive China story, make good use of innovative technologies in reporting, while upholding ethics and justice, encouraging and learning from participants from different regions, and jointly contributing to social progress," Chow said.

Linda Choy Siu-min, MTR Corp's corporate affairs and branding director, said the AI era allows anyone to be a journalist, with independent voices capable of rivaling established institutions at a moment's notice. Credible, high-quality journalism is therefore more vital than ever, she said.

Emphasizing that credibility is paramount, Choy said factual integrity and sound judgment are indispensable. Developing and maintaining a sharp journalistic intuition cannot be outsourced to algorithms and large language models alone, she added.

As one of the judges, Choy said that in judging this year's works she believes traditional journalism will always retain its core strengths — closely relevant topics tied to the times, and depth and warmth.

Awards and participants

This year's competition featured 21 prizes — 20 categories for news entries covering writing, photography and multimedia, plus one special award for the most active participation. Alongside traditional news reporting and writing, the awards introduced the Best News Reporting on Integrated Development of Technology and the Best ASEAN Photography awards, with the aim that students would not only be witnesses of the AI era but also practitioners who use lenses and pens to engage in technological transformation.

A total of 101 universities competed for the awards, including 74 from the mainland, eight from Hong Kong, four from Macao, nine from Taiwan and six universities from member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Organized by China Daily Hong Kong since 2012, the Campus News Awards is described as a prominent exchange platform for journalism students, aiming to encourage college students to actively participate in campus news reporting and hone their all-around skills as future journalists.

APEC warm-up exhibition

Next month, Shenzhen will host the 33rd APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting. As a key cultural exchange activity for APEC “China Year” and a warm-up event for the APEC meeting, the 2026 Changing Asia photo exhibition, jointly curated by China Daily and the Asia News Network, was held from Oct 26-30 at SZRI.

This year's exhibition, featuring bonding moments, echoes APEC's theme of “Building an Asia-Pacific Community to Prosper Together”.

After competition, 97 works by 54 photographers from 17 countries and regions were selected for exhibition from among 2,200 submissions by 330 photographers.