AIP Rising Awards: Local Election Reporting
AIP Election Reporting Awards is a call for dedicated community media editors and journalists to seek out the issues governing, people, parties and politics in the upcoming local elections.
Quotes
Every election is determined by the people who show up. (Larry J Sabato – whoever he is)
The ballot is stronger than the bullet (?) (Abraham Lincoln)
People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war and before an election. (Otto van Bismarck)
A politician thinks about the next election. A statesman about the next generation (James Freeman Clarke)
The poll that matters is the one that happens on election day.
Prizes: Provincial Winners – R5,000
National winner – R10,000
CLOSING DATE 31st August 2016
NO LATE ENTRIES WILL BE ACCEPTED – JUDGING NEEDS TIME
CRITERIA
- The story will cover the pre-election day period and will have been written and published before election day.
- The story must include evidence of gender awareness and analysis
- The story must use a range of different voices, i.e., it should reflect diversity of interests and opinions in the community;
- The story must use a variety of sources, including documentary sources such as those discussed in the workshop i.e. Wazimap, IEC website and/or Local Election Handbook, StatsSA, legislation, party manifestos, municipal documents (i.e. Annual Reports), Auditor-General Reports. No single source story will be accepted.
- Entries for the awards will be judged on a combination of writing skills, use of graphic material and design and layout.
- Entrants must be members of the AIP who attended the Elections Reporting workshops 2016, with a Printer’s Certificate and Company Registration.
- All entries must have been previously published and be a minimum of two printed newspaper pages (tabloid).
- Entries must be submitted in hard format (published paper copies).
- All entries must be original work.
- Sources and references do not need to be listed in the article, but all information included must be verifiable unless the author indicates that a statement is hearsay/anecdotal or similar.
- All entries must be submitted together with a completed entry form (downloadable from the AIP website www.aip.org.za).
Closing Date: 31 August 2016
Further information: Louise Vale – 011 713 9128 Mathapelo Diokane – 011 713 9614
Hand deliver/courier to
AIP Postnet Suite 36
First Floor Private Bag X9
Media Park Postnet
69 Kingsway Avenue Melville
Auckland Park
2032
PRIZES: Winning entry per workshop = R5,000
National Winner = R10,000
RISING AWARDS
Suggestions for writing a winning entry
- Use quotes and interviews – it brings an article to life, giving the readers a sense of people and place. Always place the sentences that do not belong to you in quotes, and quote the speaker.
- Write in the active sense rather than the passive sense to add pace to your article.
- Use an attention grabbing headline which persuades the reader to read the article AND also highlights the main idea of the article. Good subheadings also make an article more readable.
- Include facts and statistics to support your story, but also personal viewpoints as long as they are indicated as such.
- Include specific names, places and dates to anchor the article for the reader.
- Repeat interesting sentences/quotes in side bars to draw the reader’s attention and place extra/background information in side bars to avoid interrupting the flow of the article.
- A picture tells a thousand stories – so place emphasis on stunning illustrative material, including photographs, illustrations/cartoons and graphics. Infographics present otherwise ‘boring’ data in a visually appealing and understandable way (eg use a map and arrows to show the movement of your subject across the country; use timelines to show a sequence of events).
- Focus on your layout to make the article readable and visually attention-grabbing – breaking up big blocks of text with sub-headings, sidebars and illustrations
