The emirate of Dubai is restoring its journalism activities for this festival, holding the Dubai Shopping Festival Journalism Awards with two additional categories: Best Layout and Best Overall Coverage, report said.
"We are pleased to bring back the awards that aim at recognising excellence in the coverage of the event in print media. We added new features so that individual journalists and media organisations are rewarded for professionalism and hard work," Hussain Lootah, Dubai Shopping Festival Chief Executive was quoted by the Gulf News as saying.
Tthe entries for the Best Layout category will be judged on the visual appeal/design of a story or a page in a UAE publication, said the Dubai Shopping Festival Organising Committee, according to the Dubai-based daily.
Newspapers and magazines from the UAE will be recognised for overall coverage of Dubai Shopping Festival 2002 under the Best Overall Coverage category."The two new categories are meant to recognise the team spirit that goes behind producing newspaper pages," Elham Abbas, Dubai Shopping Festival PR and Media Coordinator told the paper.
"Ever since the festival was launched six years ago, the media has been one of the main contributors to its success. The crucial role played by the local and global media is recognised through the awards," noted Lootah.
Along with the two new additions, Dubai Shopping Festival 2002 Journalism Awards will include eight categories.
These are: UAE Story-English, UAE Story-Arabic (stories in Arabic and English UAE newspapers/magazines) and GCC Story-English/Arabic (stories in Saudi, Kuwaiti, Omani, Bahraini and Qatari newspapers/magazines), according to the report.
Also, Pan-Arab Story-Arabic (stories in newspapers/magazines in non-GCC countries: Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Yemen, Sudan, North Africa, Europe, the Americas and others), the report added.
To be eligible for the awards, all entries must be published between November 1, 2001 and March 23, 2002. Entries can be submitted by individual journalists or organisations, attaching the original story and the entry form. The Dubai Shopping Festival Journalism Awards were instituted in 1997 by the organising committee. Each winner receives a crystal trophy, a certificate and $5,000 – Albawaba.com
