Rules

Conditions of Entry

  1. The Quill Awards were established to promote and recognise excellence in Victorian journalism. The award judges may use the following criteria in determining that entries have sufficient connection to Victoria:
    • Entrant is employed by a Victorian media organisation.
    • Entrant works primarily in Victoria.
    • Entrant has been sent from Victoria on specific interstate or overseas assignment for a Victorian media organisation.
    2. "Victorian media organisation" means an organisation that conducts substantial publishing or broadcasting activities in the State of Victoria.

  2. Each entry must have been published or broadcast between 1 January 2011 to 31 December 2011.

  3. Entries must be submitted no later 10 February 2012

  4. Each entry must comply with the MEAA Code of Ethics and must declare any subsequent formal corrections, claims of plagiarism or any other legal proceedings commenced in relation to the entry.

  5. Each entrant may submit a maximum of two (2) entries in one category but must not submit the same entry in more than one (1) category. The judges reserve the right to transfer an entry to another category and to reject an entry that, in their opinion, does not comply with the requirements of the awards.
    Note: This rule does not apply to the Young Journalist of the Year Award or the Best Coverage of an Issue or Event categories. An item which constitutes or forms part of an entry in either or both of these categories may also be entered in one further category.

  6. Each entrant must certify that the entry is the entrant's original work and that it complies with all copyright requirements of the awards.

  7. The judges reserve the right to utilise and reproduce all entries submitted for the purposes of promoting the awards.

  8. The judges' decision is final. Entries will not be returned and the entrant should keep copies of the work submitted.

  9. MPC committee members shall be eligible to enter. A committee member or entrant who submits an individual entry in any category shall be ineligible to serve as a judge in respect of that category or any other category. Two Quill Awards are designed to recognise team effort - Best Use of the Digital or Online Medium and Best Coverage of an Issue or Event - although individuals are also entitled to enter. A member of a team which submits a team entry in either of these categories may not serve as Judge in the category entered, but may serve as a Judge in respect of any other category apart from the Gold Quill.

  10. Each entrant must nominate one article, broadcast or pictorial item as the primary item sought to be considered by the judges. Where the primary item forms part of a series or a package, up to two (2) further associated items may be submitted by the entrant, to provide necessary context. If this condition is not adhered to, the judges may either (i) select one item from those submitted by the entrant as the primary item, or (ii) exclude the entry from consideration.
    Note: This condition does not apply to the 'Best Three Headlines' category. In the Best Coverage of an Issue or Event Category, the entrant is not required to nominate a primary item and may submit up to 10 items or stories.

 

Judging Criteria

1. Reporting Categories:

ORIGINALITY: Has the entrant broken a news story? Was it a scoop?
IMPACT: Has the story contributed to changes in public (or private) policy?
RELEVANCE: How many people were impacted?
QUALITY OF WRITING: Was it accurate and accessible?
INVESTIGATIVE SKILLS: How much research was involved?
INITIATIVE: A handout or not?

2. Additional considerations for Broadcasting category

LIVE WORK: A weighting for extra degree of difficulty involved in "live" as opposed to pre-recorded work.
EXEMPLARY USE OF THE MEDIUM: Creative use of atmospheric sound to bring listeners/viewers closer to a story.
DIFFICULTY IN GETTING 'TALENT TO THE LINE': Degree of difficulty in getting exclusive footage or interviews.

3. Photographic Categories

SUCCESS IN DISTILLING: the essence of a breaking news story or providing a new insight into a current issue.
TECHNICAL EXCELLENCE
CREATIVITY
DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY: (particularly for photographic and cinematographic work).
EXCLUSIVITY OF IMAGES: (particularly for photographic and cinematographic work).
IMPACT

4. Columnist/Blogger Category

This will be awarded to the best columnist, defined as a column writer published at least 10 times a year. Entries are restricted to a maximum of three columns.

Best columnist will be selected on criteria including, but not limited to, the following:
ORIGINALITY OF THOUGHT
QUALITY OF WRITING
IMPACT: Contribution to any official change or practice, reader response.
INITIATIVE: Ability to identify issues on the pulse and raise public awareness.

This award is also open to bloggers who have been wholly or mainly responsible for maintaining a blog site for all or a substantial part of a year. Up to three days' worth of blog postings may be submitted together with a supporting statement providing context as to the blog's aims and achievements (400 words maximum). Use of the medium and the level and quality of interaction with website users will be considered.

5. Best Cartoon

AMUSEMENT: You can't go past the amusement factor.
ENCAPSULATION: With an editorial cartoon, the artist is attempting to express in one picture what the editorial writer takes many words to do. Succinctly encapsulating an issue is the key to a successful cartoon.
RELEVANCE: The topicality of the drawing. Its relevance to that day's events. Does it combine several issues?
METAPHOR: The wit or use of creative visual metaphor.
DRAFTSMANSHIP: Execution of the idea. The ability of the artist to completely lay their idea out on paper.

6. Best Illustration or Graphics in any Medium

TECHNIQUE
Areas for consideration:

  • quality of execution.
  • appropriateness of style or technique.
  • comparative or surprising uses of new media (or old) techniques.
  • conventional composition or unusual use of space context.

COMMUNICATION
Areas for consideration:

  • fidelity to the text.
  • appropriately, or overly literal, or subtle and oblique.
  • enrichment of, or perspective on the text.
  • kind of viewer impact: quick, sharp, broad, shallow etc.

AESTHETICS
Areas for consideration:

  • power.
  • beauty.
  • sweetness/bitterness.
  • originality.

7. Best Use of the Digital or Online Medium

PRESENTATION: Is the report well presented and viewer-friendly?
USES OF THE MEDIUM: Does the entry effectively or innovatively utilise the medium, incorporating audio, video or other multi-media tools?
JOURNALISTIC EXCELLENCE: Journalistic excellence forms part of the criteria for this award. This includes originality, impact, investigative skills, relevance, quality of writing and initiative.

8. Best News/Feature Report in Print

Can be a series of articles but applicant must identify the primary story, not necessarily the first presented.

9. Best Suburban Report in Print

This award is restricted to items published in a suburban forum and not available statewide or nationally. A report originally published in a suburban forum and later picked up in a statewide or national forum will remain eligible for this award.

10. Best Regional or Rural Affairs Report in any Medium

Stories dealing with primary production, regional or rural infrastructure and environment issues...published in any forum (regional, state or national).

11. RACV Transport Quill Award

RACV Transport Quill Award is given to the journalist or team of journalists who produce excellence in the reporting of any transport issue. Subjects are not restricted to roads or motor vehicles and can include air, sea and rail transport issues. Any subject relating to personal or commercial transportation is eligible for the award

12. Grant Hattam Quill Award for Investigative Journalism

The Grant Hattam Quill Award for Investigative Journalism is awarded to the best investigative journalism of the year. It is named in memory of the prominent media lawyer Grant Hattam.

It was first awarded in 1998, and until 2004, was presented to a person who fought to publish "against the odds" and in defence of Press freedom, qualities that marked Grant's career as a media lawyer to the Herald & Weekly Times and other media organisations.

In 2004, the award was merged with the Investigative Journalism Quill. It is a link the Melbourne Press Club believes Grant would have approved and reflects even better his contribution to journalism in Melbourne.

The prize is awarded to a journalist whose article or broadcast is judged to have made an outstanding contribution to investigative journalism. The work will uphold the right for journalists to publish or broadcast material in the public interest under difficult circumstances, which might include legal restraints.

To recognise the significance of this award, and the importance of investigative journalism, the prize money for this Quill is $1000, provided by the Herald & Weekly Times.

The Hattam winner will be considered along with other Quill winners for the $5,000 Monash University Gold Quill.

13. Best Coverage of an Issue or Event

Most Quills categories recognise the individual work of journalists (or occasionally, also, a small group working jointly on a particular story). This category is designed to recognise outstanding teamwork on the part of a larger group or news team in the coverage of a major news event or ongoing issue. Such coverage may extend over a period of hours, days, or months.

Up to 10 related items or stories may be submitted in this category. It is recognised that this may place a restriction on some entries where the event or issue being covered is particularly significant or long-running. Therefore, in this category the supporting statement (400 word maximum) may assume particular importance for entrants to give the judges suitable context and background.

ORIGINALITY: in the case of big news events many organisations will cover the same story. What set this apart?
INNOVATION: creative use of new technology, use of multiple platforms.
RELEVANCE/COHESION/CONCISENESS: how effectively did the coverage draw together the multiple threads of a major story?

14. Young Journalist of the Year

This award will be presented to the entrant judged to be the most outstanding young journalist in 2011. Judges will consider material printed or broadcast between 1 January 2011 and 31 December 2011.

The judges will consider how the story was conceived, the amount of direction the entrant received, research and influences such as time constraints.

The Melbourne Press Club's Young Journalist of the Year 2010 will receive:

  • $1000 Melbourne Press Club grant.
  • Return travel to the United States.
  • Return domestic travel within the United States donated by American Airlines.
  • Attendance at the Investigative Reporters and Editors national conference in Boston Mass. from 14-17 June 2012 and one year's international membership of IRE.
  • One week's work experience in USA (subject to conditions).

The Young Journalist of the Year Award is funded by the wife of David Wilson, Ms Josephine Nicholls, and the Wilnic Family Trust on behalf of David Wilson. David died in August 2008. He was a Walkley-award winning investigative reporter who headed The Age Insight team for 10 years.
He mentored many young journalists attached to the Insight team and was the first Australian journalist to attend the IRE conference in the United States.

The award is restricted to journalists aged 25 years or under on 1 December 2011 working in either print or electronic media. Entrants must be employed by a Victorian media organisation and working in Victoria or on specific interstate or overseas assignment for publication in Victoria (and nationally, if appropriate), or be based in Victoria reporting Victorian affairs for an interstate or international organisation. Material submitted may be a single news story or feature or a series. Entry forms must be accompanied by four tear sheets (or photocopies) of the published work and a PDF of the page or four DVDs or CDs. A recent colour head shot must also be included preferably in electronic format.

CLARIFICATION - ENTRY CONDITIONS-YOUNG JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR AWARD

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS CATEGORY IS SUBJECT TO DIFFERENT CRITERIA FROM OTHER CATEGORIES IN TWO RESPECTS:

  1. You may include in your entry in this category an item which has also been entered in another category. This is an exception to the general rule that any given item can only be entered once.
  2. Whereas for other categories there is a limit on the number of stories which may be submitted in each entry, in the YJYA there is no such limit - you may submit a folio of work. In the interests of not overburdening the judges, it would be preferable if entrants could limit their portfolio to, say, a maximum of 10 stories or items.

Entrants must be nominated by an editorial executive at the level of chief of staff or above. A condition of the award is that the winner will take up the prize during the employer's time and will be paid the normal salary while overseas. There is no restriction on the number of young journalists who may be nominated by a publication or broadcaster.

Entries close at 5pm 10 February 2012 and must be on the official entry form. The winner will be announced at the Melbourne Press Club Quill Awards for Excellence dinner at Crown Palladium on Friday 23 March 2012.

Entry forms are available in the 'How to Enter' section.

© Copyright Melbourne Press Club 2011