Australian Press Council Prize 2004
Topic and Conditions of Entry

The Australian Press Council has announced the terms of entry for its 2004 award. The Prize is awarded for the best essay submitted on a set topic.

In 2004 the topic is:

Responsible Reporting - balancing the Public Right to Know and the National Interest
The press in any modern democracy has broad freedoms to access and publish information as part of its duty to inform the public on matters of public interest. Is the people's right to know inalienable, or is it acceptable that a government restrict publication of information that might be deemed not to be in the national interest in an effort to combat terrorism, or for other reasons? Is an unrestricted press an asset in such times? Discuss with particular reference to the contemporary Australian situation.

Following the remarks made by the judges for the 1998-99 Prize and a decision taken by the Council, entries are invited from Tertiary students (as at 30 June 2004) only. The word limit for essays is 2,500 words.

Winners will be selected by a panel of three judges and the prizes of up to $2,000 will be awarded.

The final date for receipt of submissions is 30 June 2004.

At the request of the previous judges, the Council specifies that it would prefer entries that demonstrate some effort to research the topic and argue it seriously. It also requests that entries be typescript and double-spaced. No formal entry form is required.

The Press Council reserves the right not to award a prize/s.

INQUIRIES:

The Executive Secretary
The Australian Press Council
Suite 10.02, 117 York Street
SYDNEY NSW 2000

Tel: (02) 9261 1930 or (1800) 02 5712
Fax: (02) 9267 6826

email: info@presscouncil.org.au

For the guidance of entrants, the Council appends some comments from the judges of the 1994 Prize and of the 1998 Prize, which were of the same format but with a different essay topic. A different approach can be seen in the judges' comments on the 2000, 2001 and 2002 Prizes.

Judges' comments on the 1994 APC Prize

The judges were of the opinion that a majority of the entries demonstrated a less than satisfactory approach to the response to the questions raised by the topic, "The Freedom of the Press and Its Responsibility".

Too many entrants relied on personal opinion, unsupported by evidence, to present their case. In particular, there was a reliance on generalisations on the media based on a selective sample of press, usually the general circulation magazines and "current affairs" television programs. As a result, the judges read too many shallow analyses of the handling of the O J Simpson trial and the travails of the Princess of Wales. Very little effort was made to link these matters, and the (tabloid) media's handling of them, to the wider questions of the freedom and responsibility of the press - the questions raised by the essay topic.

Additionally, because many entrants did not adequately define the terms of the subject, their entries tended to be subjective views on the media coverage of a few over-exposed events. This left no room for any sort of well-founded analysis of either the freedom given to the press or its consequent responsibilities.

The judges recommend that, in future years, entrants be given clearer guidelines on the form and content of the essays. In particular, entrants should be advised that their entries should demonstrate some reading on the subject presented (including the provision of a bibliography) and be in the form of a formal essay. The essays should attempt to comply as closely as possible to the word-count maxima in the separate competitions, to enable them to argue more convincingly their thesis. The judges also suggested that only entries submitted as double-spaced typescript should be accepted.

In the case of secondary students, class assignments, not done especially for the Prize, should not be accepted.

Judges' comments on the 1997-98 APC Prize

The judges made several comments on the entrants for the Prize.

They reiterated remarks made by previous judges that the best entries demonstrated solid research of the topic and included a detailed bibliography of the works consulted.

The less successful entries lacked a sophistication of approach: they either assumed that all media were alike and that all were at the tabloid/trash/television current affairs end of the spectrum. Such entries did not adequately deal with the more responsible and informed media, especially broadsheet newspapers. They tended to engage in "press bashing" and skim over the aspects of the topic that referred to the press' responsibility to inform readers on matters of public interest.

As such, these entries tended to lack individuality and to draw on the same examples from the popular press.

The judges also thought that the better entries had some idea of the place of press self-regulation in the question of achieving a balance between personal privacy and the press' responsibility to inform and that they understood the different approaches taken to the questions by the print and the electronic media.

Those judges who had been involved in previous Prize judging thought that the overall standard was far higher in 1997-8 and commended the students generally.

Individual comments by each of the judges were sent to each student who entered.

See also: 2003 APC Prize results
and judges'comments