Due to a number of concerns raised about the credibility, nature and extent of the Sanlam Community Press Awards towards the end of last year, various recommendations were tabled at a recent meeting of the NASA Community Press Liaison Committee, which represents all the stakeholders, including the Forum of Community Journalists and Association of Independent Publishers.
Categories
The following categories will be removed:
- Environmental News
- Front pages will now form part of the criteria in judging the Cronwright & Hultzer awards
- Local Government will be merged into Hard News
- New Emerging Publisher
- Newspaper of the Year
The writing categories will consist of:
- Columns
- Editorial Comment
- Hard News
- Headlines
- Human Interest
- Investigative Reporting
- Journalist of the Year
- Personal Finances
- Sport
Photographic categories will consist of:
- Best Portfolio
- Feature
- News
- Portraits
- Sport
The Cronwright & Hultzer awards will remain in place.
Judging
Forum of Community Journalists will appoint a diverse group of suitably qualified judges representing all interest groups within the industry, with not less than three judges per category. A panel of industry representatives will be appointed to pre-judge the entries received, in an endeavour to alleviate the judges' burden, and to expedite the judging process. This panel will be representative of all interest groups, and will only put forward entries for final judging based on consensus.
Both judging processes will be transparent with clear judging criteria and procedures in place. The name of the judges will be published in advance in the call for entries.
Print Media SA will oversee the entire judging process to ensure that the criteria and procedures are followed, will offer administrative support and assistance in managing the final judging process that will take place over a 2 - 3 day period at the PMSA offices in Rosebank. All communication on this process will be managed through the Print Media SA offices.
Judging criteria
The Forum will draft the judging criteria that will be circulated to the industry for comment before being implemented. In principle, the following has been agreed to:
- Writing categories:
- The maximum number of stories/items per category will be ten (10), with the exception of Journalist of the Year that will be allowed twenty (20) stories/items.
- Entrants ranked in the top three in three of the writing categories will automatically be entered into the Journalist of the Year and the judges will take this achievement into account.
- Photographic categories:
- The maximum number of photographs per category will be three (3), with the exception of Photographer of the Year, in which six (6) photographs will be allowed.
- The judging criteria must take into consideration the versatility of the photographer in the Photographer of the Year category. The requirement that half of the entries must consist of news photographers will fall away.
- Entrants ranked in the top two in two of the photographic categories will automatically be entered into the Photographer of the Year.
- Cronwright & Hultzer Awards:
- The criteria for front pages will be incorporated into the judging criteria for these awards.
- Entry will be limited to newspapers that have:
- an ABC/VFD certification; or
- are able to supply two affidavits, one confirming the newspaper's average six-month sales figures, and another, from the printer, confirming the print order.
- It should be noted that this rule is an interim measure for those who are not able to comply with the ABC rules, and will be reviewed in 2007.
- General:
- Entries entered into the wrong category will be disqualified, and will not be moved to the appropriate category.
- The judges' decisions will be final and no correspondence will be entered into with entrants.
Date and venue
Taking into consideration that the awards programme has been streamlined, attendance at the Sanlam Awards will be limited to 250 guests that will be invited by an official invitation from Sanlam. The guest list will be proportional to the number of entries received from the respective interest groups, with the finalists receiving first priority in the allocation.
This year's ceremony and Community Press Summit will, once again, take place at the Sandton Sun Hotel in Sandton on the weekend of 28 September to 1 October 2006. Accommodation has been reserved at the Holiday Inn Sandton City.
The Welcoming Function will be re-introduced as it is an ideal forum for journalists and editors to network. This will, however, be for members' own account. The Forum will act as host and will consider sourcing sponsorship for the cocktail party.
For more information, email Cathy Pestana )) at Print Media SA.
