NEW DELHI: Internet based materials have been included in the First Asia-Pacific Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Media Awards aimed at honouring outstanding reporting/writing on the MDGs in print, radio and TV.

The MDG Media Awards are aimed at encouraging journalists to put a human face to the MDGs in the region, demonstrating how stories about extreme poverty link to the MDGs. The Awards carry a prize of US$7,000 for first prize winners in each category, and a US$2,000 prize for runners-up. Entries close 15 April 2007.

The competition is open to all print, radio and TV producers/journalists from public service broadcasting organizations, private networks and free-lance producers, and web-based news services covering the Asia and the Pacific.

The inclusion of web-based materials follows requests from media networks. Articles published on a web site fall within the print category. Videos published on a web site fall under the TV category. In both cases, web-based materials must be publicly available on the internet throughout the competition period (January 1, 2006 to June 30. 2007). Any entrant can submit a maximum of two web-based articles and up to two web-based videos. Entries can be in English or the local language, with an accompanying English translation.

Web-based works are judged ‘as-in’, that is, as they appear on the web site. DVDs or CD-ROMs with an off-line replication of a web site will not be accepted. Web-based works have to be live and on-line.

Each entry has to be secured with signed authorization from the creator (author and/or producer) as well as from the current owner of the intellectual property rights on the work (the employer), and must be authentic in all its parts: text, pictures, audio, video and other multimedia elements.

Entries for broadcast will be accepted in various formats, such as documentaries, special and feature reports, current affairs programme, dramas, or a series of ten-minute feature reports etc. They should be at least 15 minutes long to give substance to the presentation of the topic. For print, formats can be a special report, feature and investigative piece.

Entries for broadcast will be accepted in various formats, such as documentaries, special and feature reports, current affairs programme, dramas, or a series of ten-minute feature reports etc. They should be at least 15 minutes long to give substance to the presentation of the topic. For print, formats can be a special report, feature and investigative piece.

Entries can focus on any one of the eight MDGs. The United Nations Information Service has suggested some ideas which include a person or family’s struggle to ease hunger and fight disease (MDG Goal 1), success story of an AIDS victim and the role government, civil society and other institutions play into that family’s ordeal (MDG Goal 6), young peoples concerns with climate change and air quality (MDG Goal 7), or rural children trying to obtain education (MDG Goal 2). Reference to the MDG goal is mandatory.

Entry forms and contest rules are available on www.mdgasiapacific.org and http://www.aibd.org.my/homepage/article.cgi/208.html.