Call for Entries: 2012 Wole Soyinka Award for Investigative Reporting (Nigeria)

Deadline: 25 October 2012

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 has produced a published news story whether through print or electronic medium (television, radio or website) primarily targeted at and received by Nigerian audience

CATEGORIES:

• Print: Climate change
• Radio: Local government
• Television: Health
• Photography: Editorial Cartooning
• 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 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 26 October, 2011 and 3 October, 2012.

An applicant may only enter a maximum of a total of two entries.

• 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
• Photo Entries: In addition to the broad criteria, picture should score high in its motional power and technical quality. Photo entries must be well captioned in English. Original photo(s) and original copy of the published work with clean photocopy are required
• Editorial Cartooning: The award in the editorial cartooning category will be given based on the following criteria: editorial effectiveness (i.e., 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. 

GENERALLY:

• All submitted works must be in English language.
• Participation in the competition is free.
• To enhance the development of journalism in the country, journalists who have been winners in this competition on three or more occasions will be ineligible to enter
• Employees and/or immediate families of the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism are ineligible to participate in the competition.
• Only a maximum of two entries across all categories of the competition will be allowed.
• 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 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 winners 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.
• 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 finalists if the entries in such category are adjudged to have fallen below expected standards.
• The judges reserve the right to transfer entries for consideration in other categories at their discretion.
• The rigorous eligibility and judging process uphold the integrity and reputation of the Wole Soyinka Award for Investigative Reporting 2012 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 finalists based on the set criteria.

Only entries received by the deadline will be treated. Send entries to: The Centre Co-ordinator, WSCIJ, 55 Awolowo Way, Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

For queries/ submissions: entries@wscij.org o call +234-702-922-6323 or +234-802-439-5083

Website: http://www.wscij.org/

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