Now accepting nominations for the 2022 Excellence in NJ Local News Awards
This year’s contest will be different than previous years
UPDATE: The submission deadline has passed and we are no longer accepting nominations.
These last two years have been—for lack of a better word—different, than any in recent memory.
With that in mind, it seemed fitting for the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University to reassess what kind of reporting we celebrate during our annual Excellence in NJ Local News Awards, why we do it, and what it means to be award-worthy.
In previous years, we’ve put out calls for submissions focused on reporting and news-related activities in a handful of distinct categories with specific criteria. Last year, we gave out awards in the following seven categories: engagement, investigative reporting, collaboration, journalism innovation, business sustainability, campus reporting, high school journalism, and overall journalistic excellence (partner of the year).
After multiple internal deliberations and conversations with various NJ News Commons members — specifically our ethnic and community media partners — we’ve decided to do away with specific categories and instead accept submissions on a much more broad, open basis.
🧾 What does this mean for the submission process?
It means we just want you to submit your best work, your most challenging endeavor, or any project you worked on over the last year that you’re proud of and tell us why you think it should be recognized. That’s pretty much it.
Instead of making you squeeze your work into a specific set of categories, all we want is for you to tell us, in your own words, what you worked on and why you think it deserves an award.
You can still describe and justify your submission in traditional journalistic terms (e.g., “this project was a powerful example of local collaborative journalism”) and you can still emphasize the journalistic impact of your project (e.g., “as a result of our reporting, two public officials were forced to resign”) — you just don’t have to identify a particular award category when you submit it.
In addition to the direct nominations we receive, the Center will also proactively seek out examples of excellent local journalism in New Jersey and draw from an internal list of examples we’ve been compiling over the last year. This means you or your publication may be selected to win an award even if you didn’t submit something for consideration.
⚖️ What about the judging process?
The judging process will also be slightly different this year. Instead of outsourcing the evaluation phase of the awards, Center staff will be more directly involved evaluating submissions. We feel this will give us the opportunity to be more conscious of the context in which each partner produced the work in question, including the level of access and resources — or lack thereof — available to the member that produced it.
The Center will still solicit input and perspectives from third-party sources, but our goal is to have the bulk of the evaluation process conducted by those with a more intimate and nuanced understanding of the environment in which the work in question was produced.
🏆 What kind of award will I receive if I win?
Up to 10 winners will all receive the same recognition: a 2022 award for Excellence in Local News. Each winning submission will include an explanation of why it was selected to receive an award. Each winner will also receive a digital badge that can be placed on the winner’s website and/or print publication, a certificate signed by the Center, and a $100 thank you gift card.
⏲️ How can I apply and what is the deadline?
Click the button below or click here to access the submission form. The deadline for submissions is Friday, January 14, 2022 at 11:59pm ET.
☑️ Who is eligible to apply?
- The contest is open to New Jersey news and information providers.
- All reporting entries must focus on local topics related to New Jersey.
- All reporting entries must have been published, broadcast or otherwise disseminated in 2021.
- Work published or broadcast while working as a student or intern is eligible, as long as it was published or broadcast by a New Jersey news and information provider.
- Unpublished manuscripts, classroom exercises and unaired news broadcasts do not qualify. Any work found to be unpublished, unaired or a classroom exercise will be disqualified. A classroom exercise is defined as work assigned for a grade or fulfillment of a course requirement and is not eligible for a Excellence in Local News award unless it was also published outside of class in the campus/local newspaper, campus/local broadcast stations or website.
📋 Other general submission rules:
- Entries that are incomplete will be disqualified.
- Material submitted will not be returned.
- Winning entries will be referenced and linked from the Center for Cooperative Media’s website and other digital properties for publicity, educational or other purposes.
- If it is not readily apparent, please mark the date of publication or broadcast on all items submitted.
- Be sure the name of each journalist who worked on the entry is listed as a collaborator on the entry form and that their names are spelled correctly.
- A maximum of four people can be named on a single team entry. Otherwise, the entry should be submitted in the name of the newspaper, magazine, station, or online news site.
- Scripts for broadcast entries are optional, but recommended.
If you have any additional questions, comments or concerns, please send an email to info@centerforcooperativemedia.org.
Joe Amditis is the associate director of the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University. Contact him at amditisj@montclair.edu or on Twitter at @jsamditis.
About the Center for Cooperative Media: The Center is a grant-funded program of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. Its mission is to grow and strengthen local journalism, and in doing so serve New Jersey residents. The Center is supported with funding from Montclair State University, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Democracy Fund, the New Jersey Local News Lab (a partnership of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Democracy Fund, and Community Foundation of New Jersey), and the Abrams Foundation. For more information, visit CenterforCooperativeMedia.org.
