2008 JVO Award Focuses on Corruption

The 2008 Jaime V. Ongpin Awards for Excellence in Journalism (JVOAEJ) will focus on corruption/governance, human rights and environmental issues.

This was among the changes announced in the country’s most prestigious journalism awards by the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR), which administers the JVOAEJ.

CMFR Executive Director Melinda de Jesus said the changes are being introduced in recognition of the urgency of encouraging journalistic excellence in addressing corruption/ governance, human rights and environmental issues.

The country has been rocked by one corruption scandal after another, even as the human rights situation and environmental degradation have worsened.

CMFR also announced that a Board of Judges is being constituted to decide on who the 2008 JVOAEJ awardees will be. The selection process goes through several stages. CMFR conducted the first late last year, the independent scan of the major news publications to collect articles on the basis of minimum criteria, length and time of publication.

Articles submitted earlier were screened by a committee of journalists and academics on April 3 and 4. CMFR has also received for screening nominations by editors and reporters of in-depth reports published in 2007. Articles submitted to the Board of Judges do not have to be nominated by the news organization.

The articles that pass the screening stage used to be classified into investigative and explanatory articles and were then forwarded to Boards of Judges in the politics and governance, business and economics, and environment and social issues categories. A “superboard” then decided on a list of ten finalists at most, from which three awardees each from the investigative and explanatory categories were drawn.

CMFR said that for the judging this year, a superboard will no longer be constituted, and no distinction will be made between articles published in weeklies and dailies. A Board of Judges, which includes members of the Screening Committee to assure continuity in the process, will instead decide on one awardee for each of the three categories mentioned above. The winning articles can be either investigative or explanatory reports, and will receive the usual cash prize of P70,000 each. Other meritorious investigative/explanatory articles will also be recognized and accordingly awarded.

The recipients of the Marshall McLuhan Prize and Australian Ambassador’s Award will be chosen from among the awardees by the Canadian and Australian embassies in consultation with the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility. The awardees will be presented in a ceremony preceded by the JVOAEJ journalism seminar, which this year will be on June 26.

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