Deadline: August 31, 2015
Are you an arts writer, broadcaster or photographer in
traditional media or publishing online? Then it’s time to get your portfolio
together, because the National Arts Festival and Business and Arts South Africa
(BASA) are calling for entries for the third annual 2015 South African Arts
Journalist of the Year Awards (SAAJAs).
“We’re looking for journalists who help spark and shape
conversations around the arts; whose passion for the arts is palpable in their
work; and whose journalism is deeply rooted in the ethics of their profession,”
says Festival CEO Tony Lankester.
Journalists – or their editors – may submit as entries
portfolios of work or individual items published between January 1, 2014, and July
31, 2015. Competition content categories span news, feature and review work,
published in either written, visual, multimedia or audio formats.
“We’d like to encourage all journalists to give some thought
to entering,” BASA CEO Michelle Constant says. “Apart from some very attractive
cash prizes, winners will also have the satisfaction of enhanced
peer-recognition for their work and the platform on which they publish. The
awards are a great career and brand-builder.”
Journalists can nominate themselves, but it’s also open to
editors, colleagues or readers to nominate an arts writer they admire, and for
arts publications to enter their brand.
“We’re not looking for praise singers,” Lankester says.
“We’re looking for those journalists who offer insightful, well-researched and
mature commentary on the industry, and who keep our artists, their work and the
cultural industries in the spotlight in our country’s media.”
The SAAJAs are putting a special emphasis on digital media
this year, revising categories to place journalists active in social media and
on the internet on a par with those working in traditional media. “Just about
every publication in the country puts pressure on the amount of print space
allocated to the arts,” says judging panel convener, Gwen Ansell. “So writers –
and especially young writers – are turning to the internet to publish their
work either in emerging online titles or on self-managed blogs. Because the
array of platforms and publishing options open to arts journalists is changing,
the way we structure the awards needed to change, too.”
This increased openness to new media is also demographically
transformative. Limited formal arts journalism employment in mainstream
newsrooms has led in previous years to fewer SAAJA entries than we would like
from writers at the start of their careers, writers covering community arts,
young women writers and writers who may have historically been marginalised and
thus prevented from being published in the mainstream.
This year, “we’re casting the net as wide as possible to
ensure a diversity of voices in the competition,” said Ansell. “The media in
general haven’t fully addressed transformation in editorial decision-making
about what counts as a valid arts story. This has presented us with some
challenges, and so we’ve done a lot of introspection on enhancing the diversity
of entries. By making a special call to the many excellent and motivated young
journalists publishing on digital platforms, we hope to showcase the quality of
the arts journalism done there.”
BASA CEO Michelle Constant also emphasises the role of the
competition in another transformative project: boosting arts coverage across
all media. “We know that newsrooms are under increasing pressure to take into
account the economics of allocating space to the arts. We hope that awards like
this can add some prestige to those publications that do cover the arts, and
help protect those few vital media spaces left for debate and discussion about
them,” she says.
Details of how to enter your work, or nominate work for the
awards, along with more information about categories and criteria at www.nationalartsfestival.co.za/artsjourn
Closing date for entries is August 31, 2015. Judging will
take place during September and winners will be announced later this year.
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