The Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA) and Sanlam are urging all prospective entrants to avoid the last-minute rush and send in their entries before the closing date.
Confirming receipt of entries so far, Sanlam Group Head of Communications, Mr Ainsley Moos, said: "We have received some entries and we are excited to see that the competition for 2014 is definitely off to a good start. Based on last year's entries, we expect we will be receiving quite a lot of entries in the last week before the deadline on Friday.
"We encourage entrants to send their submissions as soon as possible to meet the deadline and ensure that they are not disqualified because of late entries. We would prefer not to extend the deadline as we believe entrants have had sufficient time to prepare their entries since December when the competition opened for entries," Moos added.
The MDDA and Sanlam have been gradually growing the awards with additional categories introduced in both the broadcast and print sections of the competition for the 2013 and 2014 awards. The additional print categories introduced during the 2014 competition are aimed at ensuring fair competition especially for journalists working for grassroots publications that are under-resourced and at times recently established.
Another new category, Best Indigenous Language Newspaper, has been introduced in the newspapers sub-section to recognise the growing number of newspapers published in indigenous languages.
The MDDA said the organisers hoped that there would be more entries in the various additional categories introduced in the broadcast section since 2013 as well as the traditional categories in the section. "For the 2013 awards we introduced a substantial number of categories in the broadcast section and we are looking forward to an increased response to those categories in this 2014 edition, especially now that the community broadcast media is aware of those categories," said the MDDA's acting CEO, Ms Duduzile Nchoba.
"We urge all publishers of various community and small commercial newspapers including station managers and various boards of community radio stations, to seize this opportunity to showcase the work that they do at grassroots level in various communities, as the awards provide them with a platform for recognition by the various markets," concluded Ms Nchoba.
Details of the 2014 awards are:
| Maline Malan Sanlam Group Communications Sanlam Limited PO Box 1, Sanlamhof 7532 OR 2 Strand Road, Bellville, 7530 Tel: 021 947 8132 Cell: 084 561 0967 Fax: 021 947 4889 az.oc.malnas@nalam.enilaM |
For more information and entry forms, please visit www.sanlam.co.za or www.mdda.org.za.
