CALL FOR ENTRIES

Attention professional and student journalists within 250 miles of Little Rock, it’s time to enter the Diamond Journalism Awards!

Sponsored by the Arkansas Pro Chapter, Society of Professional Journalists, the Diamond Journalism Awards recognize outstanding journalism by professionals and students from Arkansas and bordering media markets in Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas.

Eligible work must have been published or broadcast between July 1, 2017, and June 30, 2018.

Entries can be submitted starting April 9, 2018 and has been extended until 11 p.m. CDT, JULY 16, 2018.

Enter online via the Better BNC Media Awards platform, https://betternewspapercontest.com/

NOTE: BetterBNC is optimized for the Google Chrome browser and Firefox for PC and MacIntosh/Apple. For the best contest experience, use a recent version.

All entrants should log in as “open call contestant.” A contest administrator will confirm your eligibility.

ENTRY RULES

• All professional and student journalists, including freelancers, working within a 250-mile radius of Little Rock can submit entries or have entries submitted on their behalf by news organizations that published or broadcast their work.
• You don’t have to be a member of the Society of Professional Journalists to enter.
• Entries may be submitted in more than one category, but a separate entry fee is required for each category.
• Any significant challenges or corrections to an entry must be provided with the entry. If not noted, an entry will be disqualified.
• A cover letter is generally not required, but if included, should be no more than one page.
• Comments and supportive material are required only in conjunction with nominations for the Robert McCord FOI Award, Community Service Award, Outstanding New Journalist Award and Diamond Journalist of the Year Award.

ENTRY FORMAT

• Submit PDFs, JPGs or video/audio, or provide an active URL that contest administrators and judges can access to view your entries.
• Please ensure URLs remain valid through September 15, 2018, to accommodate judging.

FEES

• SPJ members: $10 per entry. To claim the member fee, you must supply your personal SPJ member number. A team entry may claim the fee if at least one team member is an SPJ member; that person’s name and SPJ member number must be listed.
• To join SPJ, go to spj.org and fill out a membership form. Pro membership is $75 a year; student membership is $37.50. Monthly payment plan available.
• Nonmembers: $20 per entry.
• Student SPJ members: $5 per entry. Provide your member number.
• Student nonmembers: $10 per entry.
• No fees will be refunded.

JUDGING

• Entries will be judged by professional journalists outside the contest
• If judges determine no entry meets standards in a given category, no award will be given.
• Categories in which there are fewer than three entries may be merged with a similar category for judging. For example, if there are only two entries in the Politics-Non-daily category, those entries will be judged with entries in the Politics-Daily category.

CATEGORIES

PAYMENT FOR ENTRIES

CONTACT

• Contest administrators Sonny Albarado and Sarah DeClerk via email: ARKSPJcontest@gmail.com