Atom Araullo's feature for GMA News Online is a finalist in SOPA Awards 2024

Atom Araullo is nominated for this year’s Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) Awards for Editorial Excellence for his piece “A Love Remains,” published on GMA News Online.

"A Love Remains" is among the regional/local nominees in the Excellence in Feature Writing category.

Published on GMA News Online in August 2023, Araullo's story talks about online sexual exploitation of children, a transnational crime that finds the Philippines at its nexus.

It's a difficult, heartbreaking read, and one that has earned praise from the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility. 

"Araullo moves easily from storytelling, walking readers through the police operation to shifting emphasis to data drawn from multiple sources to lay out the big picture, and back again to the entrapment. He takes care not to sensationalize the cases, presenting the facts in a straightforward manner, not playing up the victimization which he presents from the perspective of experts and other authorities," the CMFR said in its website. 

"A Love Remains," which was designed for the web by GMA News Online's Jessica Bartolome, is up against Frontier Myanmar’s “Myanmar's southern front” and The Sydney Morning Herald’s “China's Mongolian reach.”

In 2022, Araullo won Excellence in Feature Writing (Regional) and received an honorable mention in the Excellence in Photography (Regional) category for his special report "The Hunger Pandemic" which was also published on GMA News Online. He was previously nominated in the 2019 SOPA Awards.

GMA News Online is a consistent winner at the SOPA. Last year, it bagged the award for Excellence in Infographics (Regional/Local) for the Eleksyon 2022 website. In 2022 it took home two awards on top of Araullo's, and in 2021, GMA News Online received three awards at the SOPA.

SOPA Awards for Editorial Excellence was established in 1999 to recognize and reward great journalism.

This year’s winners will be announced on June 20 via a hybrid event to be livestreamed on its YouTube channel.