Terms & Conditions

The Walkley Awards for Excellence in Journalism

Eligibility

Entries open July 1, 2023 and close August 31, 2023 at midnight AEST. Extensions cannot be granted.
All entries must have been published or broadcast between September 1, 2022 and August 31, 2023.
All entries must have been available in Australia between September 1, 2022 and August 31, 2023.
All entrants must be:
- - Australian citizens, permanent residents of Australia, or journalists residing in Australia working for an Australian media outlet on an appropriate visa.
  - Australian citizens working for international news outlets whose work is available to an Australian audience.
This year the directors will only consider women nominees for the Outstanding Contribution to Journalism award as they seek to redress the gender balance in recipients.
Eligibility for the Walkley Awards is based on independent acts of journalism, free from any commercial or corporate interests.
Entrants must declare their entry adheres to the MEAA Journalist Code of Ethics.
Entrants must declare the work they submit is original to them, and will not infringe the legal rights of any other party, including but not limited to intellectual property rights, privacy rights, and other rights of ownership and publicity.
Entrants must declare any requests that have been made for corrections or challenges to the accuracy of work entered for an award, any claims of plagiarism that have been made against the work, and any published corrections or statements made concerning the work’s accuracy or authorship.
- - This will not necessarily disqualify an entry – transparency is important for the judging process.

Entrants must declare any actual or threatened legal proceedings, complaints, and court orders in connection with or related to the work at the time of entry, including but not limited to: defamation, contempt of court, breach of confidence, suppression and non-publication orders, and actions for preliminary discovery.
- - This will not necessarily disqualify an entry – transparency is important for the judging process.

Entrants must declare any payments or benefits provided to third parties in connection with the work/s, including payments or material gifts given in exchange for interviews, information or access.
- - This will not necessarily disqualify an entry – transparency is important for the judging process.

Entrants must declare any and all use of artificial intelligence (AI) used in producing the works entered and preparing their submission. This includes but is not limited to data scraping, using language-based systems such as ChatGPT for writing and scripting, transcription services such as Otter.AI, and AI image tools to create artwork, photography, data visualisation, and other graphics.
- - This will not necessarily disqualify an entry – transparency is important for the judging process.
Entrants must declare they understand and accept that responsibility lies with them to ensure submitted works can be accessed by judges and the Walkley Foundation throughout 2023, and that failure to do so could disqualify an entry. To ensure accessibility:
- - You must either upload your work or provide a URL that can be freely accessed without registration.
  - Ensure that any URL submitted for judging remains current for all of 2023 and can be accessed by judges and Walkley Foundation staff until 31 December 2023.
  - If the work you are entering is behind a paywall, it is strongly advised that you also upload a copy with your entry (e.g. a .PDF or .mp3 file).
  - If you chose to submit a URL that requires a log-in and password, you must clearly provide these in your Entry Statement. Responsibility lies with you to ensure these remain current for the calendar year.
  - We must stress, if the work is behind a paywall, it is always best to upload a copy of it – time and time again entrants provide URLs and log-in details that are either incorrect or change after submission.
In entering the Walkley Awards, the entrant acknowledges that the Walkley Foundation may reproduce, broadcast and communicate materials submitted for the purposes of promoting the Walkley Awards, conducting the presentation ceremony, and making finalists’ and winners’ entries available to the public. The entrant agrees that the Walkley Foundation can use the material for these purposes.
Judges have the right to reject an entry that in their opinion does not comply with the requirements of the competition. The judges’ decision will be final.
The Walkley Judging Board reserves the right to withdraw a Walkley Award if it later finds the entrant did not comply with any entry conditions.
In the event of any complaint, the entrant agrees to cooperate with the Walkley Foundation in any investigation that may be deemed necessary.

Entry fees

With the exception of the Walkley Book Award, the entry fee for the Walkley Awards is $150, including GST, for people who are not financial members of the MEAA.
Financial members of the MEAA can enter the Walkley Awards for free courtesy of MEAA. MEAA has the right to verify the membership of any entrant claiming this waiver.
All members of joint, group and team entries must be financial members of MEAA to claim the fee waiver. MEAA has the right to verify the membership of any entrants claiming this waiver.
The entry fee for the Walkley Book Award is $260, including GST, for people who are not financial members of the MEAA.
To enquire about MEAA membership, contact members@meaa.org

How many times you can enter

Entrants may enter multiple categories subject to the terms below:

Individual entrants may enter only once in each category.
The same entry can be submitted into a maximum of two categories.
- - You must complete a separate entry form for each category you are entering.

You can enter up to two times in one category in the following instances:
- - One entry is single; and the other is a joint, group or team entry
  - Both entries are a joint, group or team entry, and the duos, teams or groups are different in each case

Joint, group and team entries

Joint, group or team entries must involve substantial collaboration by all team members prior to publication or broadcast of the entry(s). Each team member’s contribution must be clearly outlined in the supporting statement. Please ensure no key team members are omitted at the time of entry.
You can be included in two teams provided the team members are different in each entry
Joint or group entries may include up to four names.
- - One person must be nominated as the primary contact.
  - All names, positions, and MEAA membership details if relevant, must be submitted with the entry.
  - All members of joint, group and team entries must be financial members of MEAA to claim the fee waiver.
  - The designated contact is expected to share communications from the Walkley Foundation with their team.
  - Entrants must submit a 50-word combined team bio about the group and their collaboration (not individual bios for each).
  - Entrants must submit a group photo or up to four individual headshots.
Team entries are for five or more people and must have one team name.
- - One person must be the designated contact.
  - All names, positions, and MEAA membership details if relevant, must be submitted with the entry.
  - All members of joint, group and team entries must be financial members of MEAA to claim the fee waiver.
  - The designated contact is expected to share communications from the Walkley Foundation with their team.
  - Entrants must submit a 50-word combined bio about the team and their collaboration (not individual bios per team member).
  - Entrants must submit a single image that reflects the team as their headshot. This could be a group photo, a photo montage depicting each team member, or an appropriate logo.

Self publication

Entry is open to Australian journalists and photographers who have self-published, including on digital and social media platforms.
Self-published entrants must provide relevant URL links and wherever possible third party verification of the work’s authenticity. These are subject to the same accessibility requirements as traditionally published work i.e. any URLs must be accessible to the judges and the Walkley Foundation until 31 December 2023, and if a log-in is required, your entry must include a username and password to access the content.
If the entrant is verifying their own work, they must make this clear in their Entry Statement.

Judging criteria

Each entry into the Walkley Awards is judged on how well it responds to:

Its category description
Adherence to the Terms and Conditions; and
Judging criteria.

The following judging criteria are applied to all awards administered by the Walkley Foundation unless explicitly stated otherwise in a category description (such as, for example, the Walkley Book Award). In addition to how well an entry responds to a category’s requirements, judges will consider the below (noting some criteria may be more or less relevant across different categories):

How the story was initiated and followed (with particular credit given for instigating or finding a story)
Newsworthiness, including exclusivity
Consideration of the resources available
Creativity and innovation
Research and investigation
Balance, accuracy, and ethics
Consideration of production pressures or deadlines and time constraints
Demonstration of best use of the format/s in which the work was published or broadcast, including clever choices in storytelling through multimedia
Excellence in written or verbal communication and/or technical and production skill
Public impact or benefit, including audience engagement and serving specific communities

Photography Awards

The Walkley photographic awards recognise visual journalists producing still photography for any platform.

Photographers should refer to the category descriptions for each category when preparing their entry.

Photographers are also invited to enter their work in relevant All Media categories in the Walkley Awards, for example, Coverage of Indigenous Affairs or Community and Regional Affairs.

A photographer may only enter once in each photography category.

Entrants may not enter the same photograph in more than one photographic category except:

The Nikon Portrait Prize: Entrants in this category are eligible to submit their photo again in another appropriate Photography Award category.
The Nikon-Walkley Press Photographer of the Year Award: where the body of the year’s work may include shots included in other entries.

Only photos taken between September 1, 2022 to August 31, 2023 are eligible for entry (the exception is if the photo was shot for purpose with the publication date already confirmed).

Entrants must provide details of the camera model used to capture the image(s) in their entry statement to assist the judges.

Each entry must contain at least one published photo.

Please see the category descriptions for further information. Below are the number of images you can submit per category:

News Photography: Up to five related images
Sport Photography: Up to five images. These do not need to be related and can represent a body of work.
Feature / Photographic Essay: Five to 12 images in a series with at least one published image.
Nikon-Walkley Press Photographer of the Year: Six to 10 images representing a body of work with at least one published image.
Nikon Portrait Prize: A single image only.

Note: Nikon-Walkley Photo of the Year is a single image only. This is not an entered category but is chosen by the judges from all work entered by photographers in the Nikon-Walkley photographic categories.

Entry process and requirements for photographers:

Photographers must submit an entry statement with each category entered.
Images must meet the following specifications:
- - Images must be uploaded in .jpg/.jpeg format
  - Images should be at least 3,000 pixels in length.
  - Each image should be saved in the .jpg/.jpeg format with a medium to high quality.
  - An embedded ICC profile is required. Adobe RGB or sRGB is recommended for colour images, Gamma 2.2 for black and white. No CMYK.
  - All required image information, such as the creation date, place and country as well as the caption/description, must be provided and clearly visible to the judges. It can be included in the metadata of the image files or entered on the entry website after uploading the images.
The content of an image MUST NOT be altered. Only retouching that conforms to currently accepted standards in the industry – cropping, digital spotting, burning and dodging – is allowed. No cloning, montaging or digital manipulation is permitted. The jury is the ultimate arbiter of these standards.

Entrants must declare any and all use of artificial intelligence (AI) used in producing the works entered and preparing their submission.
- - This will not necessarily disqualify an entry – transparency is important for the judging process.

Entrants must not intentionally contribute to, or alter, the scene they picture by re-enacting or staging events.
Entrants must ensure captions are accurate and provide a supporting statement that is open and transparent about the entire process through which their images were taken and published.
Participants who are longlisted by the first round judges may be contacted and required to provide file(s) as recorded by the camera for all submitted entry images in order to proceed to the final stages of the competition.
- - These file/s will be requested and examined confidentially during the judging period. A failure to provide these files if requested will lead to the elimination of the entry. It will not proceed into the final rounds and will not become eligible for a Walkley Award.

Walkley Documentary Award

Eligibility: Any non-fiction film made for cinema, broadcast or web release with a running time of at least 40 minutes and a maximum time of three hours, not including entirely or scripted or improvised fictionalisations of actual events. If the documentary is part of a series that exceeds the three-hour limit, entrants must choose the three hours of content they wish to be judged on, for example, the first three episodes.

Entries that have appeared within regularly scheduled television current affairs programs must be documentary in style, nature and execution.

Number of entrants:

Entries can be submitted by individual entrants, teams or groups. In the case of individual entries, entrants must provide details of how they produced their work in their supporting statement.
Joint, group or team entries must involve substantial collaboration by all team members prior to the release of the documentary. Each team member’s contribution must be clearly outlined in the supporting statement. At least one person in the team or group must be the credited director who exercised directorial control. Please ensure no key team members are omitted at the time of entry.
Joint or group entries may include up to four names.
- - One person must be nominated as the primary contact.
  - All names, positions, and MEAA membership details if relevant, must be submitted with the entry.
  - All members of the group must be financial members of MEAA to claim the fee waiver.
  - The designated contact is expected to share communications from the Walkley Foundation with their team.
  - Entrants must submit a 50-word combined team bio about the group and their collaboration (not individual bios for each).
  - Must submit a group photo or up to four individual headshots.
Team entries are for five or more people and must have one team name.
- - One person must be the designated contact.
  - All names, positions, and MEAA membership details if relevant, must be submitted with the entry.
  - All members of the team must be financial members of MEAA to claim the fee waiver.
  - The designated contact is expected to share communications from the Walkley Foundation with their team.
  - Entrants must submit a 50-word combined bio about the team and their collaboration (not individual bios per team member).
  - Entrants must submit a single image that reflects the team as their headshot. This could be a group photo, a photo montage depicting each team member, or an appropriate logo.

Final reminder on ensuring your work can be accessed

Responsibility lies with entrants to ensure their work can be accessed until 31 December 2023. Failure to make your work accessible to judges and the Walkley Foundation outside a paywall could result in disqualification.

Remember, each entry to the Walkley Awards is judged on how well it responds to:

The category description;
Adherence to the Terms and Conditions; and
Judging criteria.

If you have any questions or need help please contact Kym Middleton, kym.middleton@walkleys.com| +61 401 512 583

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