Greetings!
In the midst of all the rushing around for the upcoming holidays, I am ringing out a request that you give of your journalism expertise and lend a sympathetic ear (for tone, of course!) beginning Feb. 1 to help judge the student journalism — print, television, radio and online — submitted for SPJ’s annual Mark of Excellence competition.
I need your commitment by Dec. 15, so that I can submit judges’ contact info by Dec. 17 to national SPJ for staff there to begin the process of assigning passwords to judges, as this contest is being judged online.
Judging runs Feb. 1 to Feb. 28, so this is plenty of advance notice.
As coordinator for Region 2’s participation this year, I need as many judges as I can get to help judge entries from a DIFFERENT region, as assigned by the national SPJ MOE coordinator.
Last year, we needed all those who volunteered, so don’t hesitate to step up if you can fit this into your busy schedule.
Most all categories have a large (student enrollment of 10,000 or more) and a small (under 10,000) subsection. Examples of these categories: Newspaper Breaking News Reporting, Newspaper General News Reporting, Newspaper Sports Writing, Newspaper General Column Writing.
The radio, television, online and magazine categories all compete against each other (i.e., no distinction between large and small). Some categories within the newspapers also have no distinction, such as editorial writing and sports column writing. Also being judged are photography, photo illustrations and editorial cartooning.
This is a great opportunity to get experience with online judging, if you haven’t tried it yet. It’s also a window on how well our journalism education programs are preparing students for the professional world.
All past judges are invited to help out again!
You can contact me by email (spjdcchapter@gmail.com) to let me know of your interest or to suggest others who may be interested in judging. Let me know if there are categories you think you might prefer to judge, as well.
Some categories sampled had as few as 1 or 2 entries total, so you may be asked to judge several categories. The largest number (28) was submitted to Newspaper Sports Writing.
Here is a link to SPJ’s page with all the details (including categories and submission guidelines) about the Mark of Excellence competition, in case you want to select preferred categories: http://www.spj.org/a-moe.asp
Best wishes for a wonderful holiday season and hope to hear from many of you BY DEC. 15 that you are available to judge in this year’s Mark of Excellence contest!
Amy Fickling
spjdcchapter@gmail.com
SPJ Washington, D.C., Pro Chapter Treasurer
Region 2 MOE coordinator