New award for camera phone photo journalism

Press Release:
Nokia and Press Gazette, organisers of the British Press Awards, today announced the creation of a new award to recognise and celebrate the growing phenomenon of citizen journalism. The Nokia Citizen Journalism Awards are open to any member of the public that has had a photo or video clip published or used by a newspaper, magazine, broadcast service, internet news service, blog or photo sharing website in the last 12 months.

Entries can be submitted to a specially created website at www.citizenjournalismawards.co.uk and will be judged by a distinguished industry panel including Jon Snow (Award winning presenter of Channel 4 News), Vicky Taylor (BBC News Interactivity Editor), Nick Wrenn (Editor CNN.com Europe), and Glyn Genin (Chairman of the Picture Editors Awards and former Financial Times Picture Editor). The deadline for entries is June 30th.

• The growing usage of camera phones, camcorders and other recording equipment has largely driven the explosion in citizen journalism in recent years.
• The Boxing Day tsunami marked a key turning point with video clips from those on the ground forming a key element of news coverage of the tragedy.
• When the Buncefield oil depot blew up last December, the BBC received over 6,500 emails containing pictures and video footage from the public.

The Nokia Citizen Journalism Awards are the first of their kind to recognise and honour the citizen journalist and aims to ensure that citizen journalism is seen as a credible and important part of the new media landscape.

Both direct entries from the originator and nominations from within the media industry will be considered. The winner will take home a complete Citizen Journalism pack including the Nokia N90 cameraphone, photo printer and membership to the Flickr photo sharing website.

Commenting on the award, Ian Reeves, editor of Press Gazette, said, Citizen Journalism has exploded onto the media agenda and we hope this award will mark a key next step in recognising this phenomenon as an important and credible part of journalism.

With its long standing heritage in recognising and rewarding journalism in the UK, Press Gazette is the perfect partner for us in creating this new award, said Anna Shipley, Communications Manager, Nokia UK.

For more information on the Nokia Citizen Journalism Awards, please visit www.citizenjournalismawards.co.uk