Entries and Nominations
THE SUBMISSION PERIOD FOR THE 2011 PREMACK AWARDS HAS PASSED.
PLEASE NOTE: THE DEADLINE FOR ENTRIES HAS PASSED.
Finalists to be announced March 3, 2012.
How to enter and nominate someone for the Premack Award
Open to all Minnesota Journalists
The Frank Premack Public Affairs Journalism Award competition is one of the state’s most coveted and celebrated journalism honors. Started after the death in 1975 of Frank Premack, a reporter and editor at the Minneapolis Tribune, the competition celebrates public affairs journalism coming from Minnesota news operations. The competition includes five categories:
• Print/Online, Large Organization
• Print/Online, Small Organization
• Broadcast/Online, All Organizations
• Opinion Writing- Large Organization
• Opinion Writing- Small Organization
The Award
The reporters or writers submitting the winning entries in each category will receive a $300 check, while each of the winning media organizations will receive a special citation honoring their recognized achievement in public affairs reporting or opinion writing. The winners are selected by a panel of citizen judges representing Minnesota community and public life from the arts, education, law, politics, journalism, and the general public.
Entry Submission
The deadline for the 2011 competition is Feb. 3, 2012.
Award Categories
There is one award for each category. We ask all entrants to pick the category most appropriate to their focus and resources. The Premack board reserves the right to move an entry from one category to another if they deem necessary.
1. Excellence in coverage of public affairs reporting from a large organization, print based and/or online.
2. Excellence in coverage of public affairs reporting from a small organization, print based and/or online.
3. Excellence in coverage of public affairs reporting from broadcast based or multimedia online news organization.
4. Excellence in opinion journalism from a large news organization.
5. Excellence in opinion journalism from a small news organization.
Opinion journalism includes individual editorials, signed columns, blog entries and other expressions of a point of view about state or local public affairs
Awards Presentation
The announcement of the winners of the Premack public affairs journalism award competition will take place on Thursday, April 19, 2012, at the McNamara Alumni Center on the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities campus. The program will be a forum for public affairs journalism award winners to celebrate their winning work and inspire and encourage good journalism.
Rules of Competition
The stories submitted must address Minnesota state and local public affairs topics – that is, those matters that affect the shared lives of Minnesota citizens, and that citizens and their governments have the power to change. Stories intended for a mass audience in any medium are eligible to enter. All stories, regardless of medium, will be judged on the basis of their relevance and impact on their community, as well as their clarity, thoroughness, fairness, timeliness, and creativity. Entrants are invited to submit additional information documenting the impact of their work on the community.
Entries in the large, small and broadcast categories may be single stories or a series of related stories. Opinion entries must be single items only. We retain the right to post, distribute and display winning entries. Only work appearing in qualifying media outlets during the 2011 calendar year may be entered. A nominating letter explaining the context and rationale behind the submission and the official entry form must accompany all entries. Only reporters, editors and/or producers listed on the entry form will be recognized. Late additions to this list will NOT be accepted.
Enter Today!
Will your story be formatted into a PDF? Please enter here.
Will your story be available via URL? Please enter here.
Things to consider:
If your organization will not host your work online permanently, please consider entering a PDF version. We will gladly accept audio and video entries through drop box link, email or you may send us a DVD/CD version.
If you submit a PDF that shows the page layout, please be sure the article title written on the entry form is the same as it appears on the page. If it is part of a series, it must be very clear which stories are entered.
Please contact Premack@umn.edu for more information.
