The Epica Awards has announced Claire Atkinson, a seasoned journalist, as the 2024 jury president.
The highly respected journalist has held senior positions at The New York Post, NBC and Business Insider. She has spent her career covering the global media business.
Claire writes an influential newsletter, “The Media Mix” and has been commissioned to write a biography of Rupert Murdoch by Grand Central Publishing, a division of Hachette.
Commenting on the benefits of a jury of journalists, she said, “We’re always looking for what’s new, what’s different. We spend our lives scouring the internet for stories, watching TV, and reading the news. So I think we’re hyper-aware of innovative ways of communicating…As far as I’m concerned, if my eyes are open, I’m working.”
Marketers and journalists are on the same page, she adds. “Like us, brands want to know where society is going, because they need to be aware of the cultural trends that are going to influence how they sell things and where they’re going to advertise. So I think a jury of journalists is highly appropriate for an advertising awards show.”
Claire started on trade titles, including Ad Age and Broadcasting & Cable, before moving to the New York Post, where she spent seven years on the media beat for the paper’s business desk. She later joined NBC News, where she was senior media editor. More recently she was chief media correspondent at Business Insider.
Raised in the UK, Claire moved to New York in 1999 as she considered it “the centre of the media”, her passion, as well as “the centre of ambition”. Her parents were ravenous consumers of news media and she grew up wanting to be a journalist.
The Epica awards covers advertising, design, PR and digital. Every agency that enters Epica has effectively already won because their work is seen by journalists, the very group of people who can spread the word about their talent.