MIAMI, Florida (November 17, 2011)—The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today launched its call for entries in its 2012 Excellence in Journalism Award contest. In the competition, which takes place annually, the best of journalism in the Americas vies for top honors. Publications and news agencies in more than 33 nations in the Western Hemisphere enter their best works in English, Spanish or Portuguese in the contest, which has a January 15, 2012 deadline.
The IAPA awards are one of the organization’s emblematic activities. “In participating in the contest publications can asses what have been their best products during the year and set their sights on new objectives designed to improve the quality of journalism,” said Francisco Miró Quesada, editor of the Lima, Peru, newspaper El Comercio and chairman of the IAPA’s Awards Committee.
The adjudication panel will evaluate the entries and choose 10 finalists in each of the 12 categories. The winners will be presented with certificates and cash prizes during the IAPA’s General Assembly next October in São Paul, Brazil. The categories are the following: inter-American relations, human rights, news coverage, features, in-depth reporting, photography, cartoons, infographics, opinion, newspaper in education, online news coverage, and multimedia coverage.
This year the IAPA is including a new category related to the digital world – multimedia coverage. The award, sponsored by El Comercio of Lima, Peru, and bearing the name of its former editor, renowned Peruvian journalist and intellectual Alejandro Miró Quesada Garland, who died recently, is designed to recognize the best works – major reportages and features – that intelligently and creatively use different media (text, photography, audio, video, infographics) and social networks.
Also awarded is the IAPA Grand Prize for Press Freedom, given to a person or organization with significant achievements on behalf of the cause of freedom of the press. In general, the awards consist of $2,000, plaques and diplomas.
The IAPA is an organization made up of more than 1,300 publications that includes editors, publishers and other professionals that has for more than 60 years been devoted to defending and enhancing press freedom in the Western Hemisphere.
The call for entries and contest rules are posted on the IAPA’s Web site, www.sipiapa.com. To participate it is not necessary to belong to the IAPA.
Direct access: http://www.sipiapa.org/awards