Three Multimedia staff members have been nominated among 31 journalists and institutions for this year’s Ghana Journalists Associations (GJA) Awards. The three are Adom News Editor Samuel Nii Narku Dowuona, Joy News Reporter Sammy Darko and Joy News Eastern Regional Correspondent Kwaku Owusu Peprah. A total of 36 competitive awards plus a few honorary awards would be presented at the 16th GJA Awards scheduled for Friday, September 9, 2011, under the theme ‘Giving Impetus to Democracy and Development in Africa: The Role of Investigative Journalism”. The 31 nominees were drawn from 16 media houses and one Freelancer. Chairman of the 11-member awards committee, Mr. Edward Ameyibor who announced the nominations noted that this year the number of categories reduced from 39 last year to 36 but the number of entries rose from 271 to 302. “Among the categories that we did not look at this year are cartoons, democracy and peace-building and rural reporting,” he said. He noted that there would be no awards for six of the categories this year, namely sports, science, parliamentary, photo journalism, online journalism and morning show. Meanwhile a new category, Social Security reporting, sponsored by SSNIT has also been included this year. Mr. Ameyibor said the criteria for deciding award winning entries were accuracy, balance, relevance, social impact, initiative, ethical standards, background, language and truth. He noted that some of the entries were disqualified because they did not have names and categories they were intended for. “The error of sending the same items for several categories occurred again this year and some also sent less than the number of copies of their works than what was required,” he said. Mr. Ameyibor said some of the entries were just “ordinary pedestrian” stories which should not have been entered at all. He therefore recommended that for subsequent awards, the awards committee should be constituted earlier to go round media houses and educate journalists about the entry requirements and the criteria for judging entries. Some journalists also proposed that there should be an entry form bearing a template of entry requirements so that journalists entering their works could fill and attach to their entries to avoid the difficulty of making entries without the names, and intended categories. Senior Manager of Corporate Communications at MTN Ghana, Mrs. Georgina Asare-Fiagbenu said she was worried no entries came in for science reporting and online reporting, adding that MTN would work with the GJA to build the capacities of journalists in those areas. MTN is the headline sponsor of the GJA Awards, with a package of GHS70,000 and products worth GHS5,000. Communications Manager of Tullow Oil, Mr. Gayheart Mensah also presented a cheque for GHS5,000 to support the awards, and pledged to discuss further support for journalists through the GJA.