Submissions are now open for the Data Journalism Awards (DJAs) 2015 run by the Global Editors Network (GEN) and sponsored by the Knight Foundation and Google. The DJAs reward outstanding work in the field of data journalism in any media worldwide.
The Data Journalism Awards 2015 will be awarding a €1,500 prize to each of its ten categories and seek to reward examples of data driven investigations, data driven applications and storytelling with data visualisation, which cover matters relevant to society and aim to have an impact at a societal level.
The fourth annual DJA will conclude with the DJA Ceremony to be held on June 18, 2015 during the GEN Summit in Barcelona to showcase the best of data journalism worldwide.
Simon Rogers, Data Editor at Twitter, is the new DJA Director and five new jury members have joined for 2015 with Paul Steiger as President of the Jury. New categories have been introduced to recognise the development and innovation in data journalism including a Public’s Choice prize. A monthly newsletter with the best work in data journalism will be curated by Simon Rogers.
Eligibility Requirements are:
- Media companies, non-profit organisations, freelancers or individuals are all eligible
- Works produced by individuals or teams of staffers from media companies and non-profit organisations as well as freelancers or individuals are all eligible for entry.
- Works that are the result of a collaboration between organisations may also be submitted.
- Works produced by staffers or freelancers collaborating with government agencies, business or trade organisations with a stake (financial or of other nature) in the issue at hand are not eligible.
- Works that include significant input from the members of the jury will not be accepted for entry into the competition.
The DJA administrators have the final authority to determine whether an entry is eligible or not.
The ten categories are
- Data visualisation of the year: Best interactive or static visualisation based on data which may be self-contained or combined with a story but must accomplish a journalistic purpose and use data significantly. A maximum of three elements is allowed per entry.
- Investigation of the year: Best data-driven investigation which uses data collection and analysis to disclose or spotlight a significant abuse of power or failure to uphold the public interest. A maximum of five elements; stories and data presentations will be allowed per entry.
- News data app of the year: Best data journalism application in which interactivity is important and the project provides both explanation of the topic and an opportunity for users to explore the topic and create their own story. A maximum of five elements per entry.
- Data journalism website of the year: Best data-based journalism website based on quality of content, frequency and variety of subjects covered. A maximum of ten examples per entry.
- Best individual portfolio: Based on quality of content, frequency and variety of subjects covered. A maximum of ten examples per entry.
- Best use of data in a breaking news story within first 36 hours: Best data-based journalism around a breaking news story within the first hours of the story breaking based on quality of content, frequency and variety of subjects covered.
- Open data award: Using freedom of information and/or other levers to make crucial databases open and accessible for re-use and for creating data-based stories.
- Best entry from a small newsroom with fewer than 25 journalists not otherwise honored in the competition.
- General excellence (Jurors’ Choice): An entry of high excellence not otherwise honored in this competition.
- Public choice: An entry of high excellence selected by the public.
The submission deadline is April 8, 2015 at 23h59 GMT and all work must have been published or aired between April 10, 2014 and April 4, 2015. All submissions must be in English. Entries in languages other than English will be accepted provided that they are accompanied by translations of the work.
Words included in graphics, databases and applications must also be translated and radio material must be transcribed in English and video material must contain English subtitles. If a work originally published in a language other than English passes the pre-jury selection stage, applicants may be asked to provide additional information and translations.
Entries are allowed to have been published on any other media platform: online, radio, audio, broadcast, print or a combination of platforms. Entries are allowed to be an individual work or a series of works or from a small or large newsroom in specific categories.
Projects are to be submitted on the new platform, the GEN Community. This recently launched community already has over 1,000 media innovators and over 350 projects to discover. As much information as possible should be provided on projects including anything relevant which can help the jury with their decision. To provide more detailed information about portfolio projects, different fields such as URLs, videos, embedded documents and additional files can be used.
The pre-jury will assign each project to the category deemed fit. Submissions will be reviewed monthly by a pre-jury and five to ten projects of the best will be shortlisted per month and submitted to the jury in April 2015, giving better chances for selection. For the personal portfolio category, submissions should be presented as one entry with a general description covering all projects within the entry.
For More Information, visit the Official Webpage of the 2015 Data Journalism Awards: https://www.globaleditorsnetwork.org/programmes/data-journalism-awards/
The Global Editors Network and its jury members wish all contestants the best of luck for this year’s competition and look forward to discovering the projects.
