Call for Entries for the 8th Wole Soyinka Award

Overall judges will be looking for ethical journalistic courage, individual creativity and public benefit   ELIGIBILITY The Award is open to any Nigerian professional journalist or team of journalists (full time or freelancers), 18years and above, who have produced a published story whether through print or electronic media (television; radio or online) primarily targeted at and received by a Nigerian audience.   CATEGORIES Print Climate change Radio Local government Television Health Photography Editorial Cartoon Online Sports   CRITERIA The main criterion for eligibility is that the work (single work or single-subject serial) involves reporting on public or corporate corruption, human rights violation, or on the failure of regulatory agencies. The story (whether electronic, print, virtual, visual or graphic) should reflect high quality of investigation in terms of newsworthiness, capacity to expose or prevent corruption in the public domain and an understanding of human rights implications of the story. Such works should have been first published or broadcast in a Nigerian media between 4 October, 2012 and 3 October, 2013.   Print Entries - Newspaper and Magazine Entrants are required to send the original and a CLEAN Photocopy     Broadcast Entries - Radio and Television Transcripts written in English language are required Audio entries should be sent in Audio CD format, with accompanying script; video entries must be on VCD, with accompanying script 2 copies of each entry is required     Photographic Entries In addition to the broad criteria, picture should score high in its news worthiness/story telling, visual interest, power to evoke emotion and technical quality Photo entries must be well captioned in English For single photographic entries, the original photo and original tear sheet of the published work with clean photocopy are required     Editorial Cartoon The award in the editorial cartoon category will be given based on the following criteria: editorial effectiveness (what you can also call the strength of the message of the cartoon), pictorial effect, drawing quality and originality An original copy of the published work with clean photocopy are required     Online Entries Clearly indicated URL (web link) for the published work is required as print out is unacceptable Entry should be sent online to entries@wscij.org     Generally All submitted works must be in English language Entry is free To enhance the development of journalism in the country, journalists that have been winners in this competition on three or more occasions will be ineligible to enter Employees of the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism and/or their immediate families are ineligible to participate in the competition Applicants may only submit a maximum of two entries across categories The journalist with the most outstanding work(s) amongst the finalists will be selected as the WSCIJ-Nigerian Investigative Journalist of the year Entering for this competition commits you to grant WSCIJ a worldwide, perpetual, royalty free licence to use your works for any purpose deemed appropriate for the development of the award initiative, the Centre and the media WSCIJ guarantees that there is absolutely no connection between any sponsor and the judging process despite possible sponsorship of some categories of the award. The winning works are known to only the judges’ board until the awards presentation ceremony The Competition shall be covered and interpreted with the laws of Nigeria     SUBMISSION The submitted package should include: A brief synopsis of the story/series, picture, or portfolio     In the synopsis, the applicant is expected to: Explain the background of the project; identifying the issues and key players Describe what led to the topic or caption, any unusual condition faced in developing the project and whether the investigation had any ramifications Describe challenges to the content of the story/series that were not reported in the original work Include up-to-date Curriculum Vitae for every reporter who bears the byline of the story with one passport photograph Include any relevant background information on your submitted work(s)     NOTE Synopsis should be in English and a maximum of 400 words Two copies of each submission is required and only a maximum of two entries across categories are allowed All submissions (apart from the online entry where URL details only are required) should be in hard copy for all categories Entries for climate change, local government, health and sports can be rendered in print, radio, photo, online or television form     Judging Process The Competition shall be adjudged by a distinguished judges’ board which comprises of respected persons with suitable knowledge, competencies and experience in journalistic practices Under the new entry coding system, each entry is tagged with a code numbers to make identity of entrant and media house anonymous to judges Judges’ board members can only assess, score or vote on works to which they have no organisational or family ties Due to WSCIJ’s commitment to excellence, it will be in order to have categories without a finalist if the entries in such are adjudged to have fallen below expected standard The judges reserve the right to transfer entries for consideration in other categories at their discretion The rigorous eligibility and judging process upholds the integrity and reputation of the Wole Soyinka Award for Investigative Reporting 2013 competition. The judges reserve the right to disqualify any piece of work and/or finalist if, in the judges' opinion, there exists reasonable doubt about the authenticity and/or accuracy of the submitted entry and/or the integrity of the finalist based on the set criteria.     Only entries received by the deadline - Friday, October 25, 2013 will be treated.