Against a record number of entries, the 2023 Hugh Cudlipp Student Award was won by Bristol politics graduate Pieter Snepvangers – for his “hugely topical and timely” story on how students at a Russell Group university can get a 2:1 by asking ChatGBT to write their essays.
Judges said his story, published in The Tab and followed up by The Metro, The Daily Mail, The Sun, The Mirror and The Independent, was both “informative and entertaining”. Pieter said:
“Fed up with articles which only spoke about universities’ fears around ChatGPT and warnings of students not to use the software, I wanted to clearly answer two core questions to help inform students in a practical way. Can you use it to write a university essay and will your lecturer be able to tell?
“The piece was the first of its kind to show students graphically how ChatGPT can be used and what an AI produced essay might score.”
Announcing the winner at the annual Cudlipp Lecture, given this year by Olga Rudenko, chief editor of The Kyiv Independent, judges’ chair Paul Charman said: “With a record number of entries we had dozens of a quality worthy of this prize which is hugely reassuring at a time when our industry is facing so many challenges. As long as the young keep coming, we’ll always have a trade.”
He said the judges were looking for great journalism but also something the late Hugh Cudlipp, the legendary editor of the Mirror, might have admired, journalism in the spirit of his aim to communicate complicated and important issues to a mass audience in a popular and entertaining way.
In addition to the winner, who was presented with a £1,500 cheque from Alison Phillips, editor of the Mirror which sponsors the prize and partners the Cudlipp Lecture with the London Press Club, judges highly commended four other finalists.
First of those highly commended was Oliver Murphy for his well-written, thorough and sensitive handling of his investigation https://metro.co.uk/2023/04/06/survivors-of-domestic-abuse-by-police-speak-out-2-18566720/ into domestic abuse by police officers published in The Metro.
Next highly commended was Emily Smith of the York Tab for her interview with a student who was stalked by her driving instructor. Judges liked the “good, hard, reporting” and commented that the piece was “impressive for someone at an early stage in their career”. https://thetab.com/uk/york/2022/05/27/he-joined-my-accommodation-group-chat-york-student-stalked-by-her-driving-instructor-28307.
Leah Peachey produced what the judges said was an “incredibly moving and important piece of journalism” for the Lancaster Tab about living with anorexia during the pandemic and the loss of her father. The judges said this was a “brave, insightful and hopeful piece on anorexia”. https://thetab.com/uk/lancaster/2022/03/04/my-anorexia-nearly-stole-my-life-from-me-but-im-still-here-fighting-five-years-later-31938.
Finally judges highly commended Caolan Magee for his piece in The Independent investigating Andrew Tate’s ‘university’. The writing was “full of personality, informative, insightful, topical and brave”. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/andrew-tate-news-hustler-university-prison-b2270271.html.
