GJA Launches 2009 Awards

The 2009 Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) awards competition was launched in Accra.Nine new awards have been introduced. The new categories bring to 38 the number of awards to be contested for.

The new awards include Small and Micro Scale Enterprises (SMEs), HIV and AIDS, Development Journalism for furthering MDGs, Crime and Court reporting and Hygiene and Sanitation.

The rest are the Best Report on Anti Corruption, Best Report on Education, Best Cartoonist and Democracy and Peace Building. All the awards except the Democracy and Peace Building will go to individual contestants.

The awards ceremony, scheduled for August 15, 2010, will be the 15th media awards competition of the association.

The already instituted awards are Radio, Television and Print, Investigative reporting, Photo-journalism, Sports, Art/Entertainment and Domestic Tourism, Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu Award for Business/Finance and Economic Reporting, Environment, Health, Parliamentary Reporting, Political Reporting, Disability,Telecommunications, ICT (on-line journalism) and the Columnist.

The rest are Best Lay-out and Designed Newspaper, Best Rural Radio Station, Human Rights and the Best Radio/Television Programme for the six main local languages in the country.

At a press briefing in Accra, the President of the GJA, Mr. Ransford Tetteh, said the awards competition was instituted to promote high journalistic standards, as well as motivate members who excelled in their work.

"The GJA constitution charges the association to promote high journalistic standards and reward excelling members. It is for this reason that the annual GJA awards were instituted," he said.

He explained that entries for the competition will be received in all categories except that of the Journalist of the Year.

Mr. Tetteh also indicated that the competition will include the participation of the public in the selection of contestants for some selected categories through a 'Predict to Win' draw, which will be announced later.

The Vice-President of the GJA, Mr. Affail Monney, encouraged all journalists to participate in the competition to win awards for their good works.

The competition requires interested journalists and media houses to submit three best stories to the Award Committee.

Closing date for entries is May, 17, 2010.

source : GBC

--
International Institute for ICT Journalism
www.penplusbytes.org