DHAKA: The WMS Global Awards for Excellence, which is launched by the World Media Summit (WMS), has opened for entries.
The categories are including public welfare, media innovation and reporting.
The awards are launched upon the decision made during the Second WMS Presidium Meeting held in Hangzhou last October.
It’s open to all media organizations, including news agencies, newspapers, news websites and TV stations, and professionals around the world.
The WMS secretariat said, adding that this is the first comprehensive news awards under the framework of the WMS and will cover multiple media formats, including press, photo, video and integrated media.
The 2014 awards will include awards for public welfare, media innovation and reporting. Entries, which must be published, released or broadcast by media organizations, can be submitted on the WMS official website (www.worldmediasummit.org) from 00:00 GMT, July 1, 2014 to 24:00 GMT, Sept. 30, 2014.
Given these are the first awards ever launched by the WMS, the time frame within which entries must have been published extends to a year, which is from January 1, 2012 to December 31, 2013.
The winners will be announced in November 2014 and would receive a certificate and a cash prize of up to 10,000 U.S. dollars. The working language is English. There are no language limitations to entries, but copies of an English translation should be attached, based on which reviews and judgment are made.
The WMS Secretariat said it will invite veteran and senior news practitioners from the Secretariat members and other world renowned media organizations, as well as experts and scholars from professional academic institutions, to act as judges.
They are to proceed with their work in line with prevailing international norms and with the principle of ‘equality and justice’.
The WMS is a high-level communicating platform which is comprised of news organizations such as the News Corporation, the Associated Press, Reuters News, Xinhua News Agency, ITAR-TASS News Agency, Kyodo News, British Broadcasting Corporation, Turner Broadcasting System Inc., Google, AL Jazeera Media Network, the New York Times Company, NBC News, MIH Group, Kasturi&Sons Limited and Folha Group.
The first WMS meeting was held in Beijing in October 2009 and the second one in Moscow in July 2012. The Secretariat of the WMS, which is composed of representatives of the above 15 media organizations, is based in Xinhua.
The secretariat said the awards honor ‘truth, objectivity, excellence’ in journalism and are aimed to encourage all people working in the media sector to hone their professional skills and pursue excellence, while inspiring media setups to work with the times in the spirit of innovation.
The secretariat said after the second presidium meeting that it had consulted all the WMS presidium members on topics such as award categories, organizing structure, procedures, entries requirements and panel of judges.
If a journalist fails to upload the entry materials online due to poor network conditions, he/she may send an email to [email protected] with name, organization, country, video name, video size, contact information and other information deemed necessary. The WMS Secretariat will contact him/her as soon as possible to address the problem.
BDST: 1940 HRS, AUG 06, 2014
