Club revises awards rules to reflect multiplatform journalism

The National Press Club has changed the rules for its national journalism contest in an effort to assure it keeps pace as the Internet changes how news is gathered, disseminated and defined.

The Club's Board of Governors has revised the "general eligibility" to ensure that good journalism won't get excluded because of its platform. The entry deadline is April 1 (http://press.org/about/awards).

"This lays out a path for good journalism to be recognized," said board member John Hughes.

For example, the definition of eligible work was changed from stories that were "published or broadcast" in the previous calendar year to "disseminated" in the previous calendar year.

The new criteria also encourages non-traditional entrants to explain how they meet the Club's journalistic criteria.

Those criteria remain as strong as ever. Editorial independence is specifically cited as a key criteria. Advocacy outlets of interest groups are explicitly excluded. And non-traditional entrants are asked to explain their editorial independence.

The board had not ruled any entries ineligible because of the previous criteria. The changes grew out of several months of board discussions about awards criteria and eligibility.

The Club already had an award designated for online journalism, the Joan M. Friedenberg Online Journalism Award. The criteria for that award give extra weight to the use of multi-media.