Economia's Journalism Awards 2013

Economia publishing house boasted in a house advertisement in HN today that its journalists won the most nominations in the Open Society Fund's Journalism Awards 2013. Indeed, Economia's journalists won 11 of the 15 nominations in the five categories in which they qualified (excluding audiovisual categories dominated by Czech TV and Czech Radio). Journalists from Economia also won three of the five honorary awards. This is an amazing success rate of 70% or 73%, depending on how you calculate it. Economia said in its ad today that "Content decides," but the laws of probability suggest that something else is at play here. We will not even entertain the possibility that Economia has most of the best journalists. Either Economia is more systematic about its nominations than other publishing houses, or its editorial philosophy is more in line with the panel of judges chosen by the Open Society Fund. Or both, of course. Whatever the reason, a success rate of 70-73% for a single publishing house thoroughly discredits the awards contest.