2015 Deutsche Welle Best of Online Journalism Contest for Online Journalists and Bloggers

Submission Deadline: March 12 2015

Since 2004, The Bobs awards honor bloggers, activists and journalists in 14 languages that champion the open exchange of ideas, freedom of expression and human rights on the Internet.

Starting today, you can make submissions for all 17 categories at The Bobs. Then it will be up to the jury to decide on a list of nominees in each category. The more exciting, innovative and interesting your submissions now, the better the contest will be when it comes time to determine the winners.

Who can participate?

• Submissions must be in one of the contest’s languages (which are Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, English, French, German, Hindi, Indonesian, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, and Ukrainian).
• Websites need to be freely accessible to the general public – that means no passwords allowed.
• Don’t get hung up on online formats, the contest is open to Facebook pages, YouTube channels, microblogs, podcasts – whatever online material you find interesting and inspiring is welcome at The Bobs.

In addition to the Jury Categories of Social Change, Privacy & Security and Arts & Media, Deutsche Welle will also hand out the Freedom of Speech Award.

The international Jury will determine the winners in the contest’s multilingual categories while an online vote open to all Internet users will determine the winners of The Bobs’ 14 language-specific categories.

Award:

• The winner of the Freedom Speech Award and winners in the three Jury Categories will all be invited to receive their awards as part of Deutsche Welle’s Global Media Forum in Bonn, Germany, (June 22-24).
• The theme of this year’s conference is Media and Foreign Policy in the Digital Age.

Selection Criteria:

Here are the bullet points the jury will use in making their evaluations:

Concept

• The idea behind the blog, project or initiative and its implementation
• Relevance to society at large
• Audience-appropriate tone
• Language style
• Ongoing engagement with topics and users
• Transparency and authenticity

Creativity

• Visual originality and skill at taking advantage of the possibilities offered by the Internet

Innovation

• Site’s novelty / uniqueness

For More Information:

Visit the Official Webpage of the Deutsche Well Best of Online Journalism Contest