The Organisation Council for the first National External Information Service Awards in 2014 calls for submissions from central and local media agencies, domestic and foreign journalists for consideration.

Submissions must satisfy the following criteria:

I. General content regulations:

Journalism pieces may be in Vietnamese or a foreign language, and must target overseas Vietnamese or foreign readers and audiences. Submissions must have been published in mass media outlets licensed by authorised Vietnamese agencies or foreign media from January 1, 2014 to December 31, 2014.

Submissions must be accurate, persuasive, widely known nationally and internationally, and positively appreciated by public opinion. Submitted articles must contribute to Vietnam’s external relations communications, specifically:

- Positively promote the image of the nation, national culture, history, and people, as well as domestic realities and achievements during the process of reform, national construction and defence, and portray a nation of peace, stability, development, great potential, and active international integration.

- Provide accurate, timely and in-depth information of the Party’s orientations and policies, State law, and the Vietnamese stance on regional and international issues; eliciting support from the international community for Vietnam and creating favourable conditions for the national defence and construction cause.

- Countering fabricated and distorted information about Vietnam, especially about critical, sensitive and newly-emerging issues drawing domestic and international attention, including those related to national sovereignty of sea and islands, national borders, ethnic minorities, religion, democracy, and human rights, aptly guiding public opinion and minimising negative impacts from inaccurate information and false allegations.

- Helping foreigners and the overseas Vietnamese community develop an in-depth understanding of the current state of the nation, mobilise the support of the Vietnamese community abroad and foreigners to strengthen cooperation and friendship between Vietnam and other countries, ultimately contributing to the sustainable development of the country.

II- Entry Regulations

Acceptable entry formats include: print newspaper, radio broadcasting, television broadcasting, online newspaper, and press photo as follows:

1. Print newspaper: three awards will be given for:

- News, news features, and interviews
- Editorials, commentaries, and research articles
- Reporting, investigative reporting, and personal narratives

Entries must be a news article, a news series (with no more than five components), a story, or a story series (with no more than five instalments) by the same writer or group of writers about the same event or topic. Series with independent news articles or stories published at different points in time are not eligible.

Entries written in foreign languages do not need to be translated into Vietnamese.

2. Radio broadcasting: three awards will be presented for:

- News, news features, and interviews (no longer than five minutes)
- Commentaries and research spots (no longer than eight minutes), talk shows and general broadcasts (no longer than 60 minutes)
- Reporting, investigative reporting (no longer than eight minutes),

Entries must be individuals or a series of news or stories about one topic, one event or one subject broadcast over one or multiple instalments. It must have clear sound quality, characters’ voices, noise, and music.

3. Television broadcasting: three awards will be given for:

- News, reporting (less than 15 minutes), and personal narratives (less than 30 minutes)
- Commentaries, talk shows, and special subjects (less than 120 minutes)
- Documentaries (less than 60 minutes)

Entries must involve moving image techniques that satisfy quality requirements.

Entries produced in foreign languages must be accompanied with Vietnamese subtitles.

4. Online newspaper: two awards will be given for:

- News, news features, interviews, commentaries
- Reporting, investigative reporting, and personal narratives

Entries must be created initially and exclusively for online newspapers. Entries republished from print newspapers are not eligible. Online news entries, including multi-media entries, must carry the characteristics of online newspaper.

Entries must be a news article, a news series (with no more than five components), a story, or a story series (with no more than five instalments) in the form of text, audio, photo or multimedia by the same writer or group of writers about the same event or topic. Series with independent news articles or stories published at different points in time are not eligible.

Entries written in foreign languages do not need to be translated into Vietnamese.

5. Press photo: one award will be given for:

Single photos, groups of photos, and photo reporting

Photo collections may be submitted with no more than 10 photos, published in the same newspaper issue or at the same time for online newspapers. Manipulated photos and landscape photos are not eligible.

II. Authorship Regulations

The author of a submission may be an individual or a group of persons living in or outside the country.

Submissions that have received other awards at other competitions may still enter in the National Foreign Relations News Award 2014, but information on the prize type and the competition’s organising board and time frame must be included in the submission dossier.

Submissions with concerns of copyright infringement will not be considered.

III. Prizes

The National Foreign Relations News Award 2014 offers five sets of prizes for the five categories of print newspaper, radio and television broadcast, electronic newspaper, and photograph.

Each category consists of first, second, third and consolation prizes. The jury will also consider several subsidiary prizes.

The awards ceremony will be held on May 19 of this year.

IV. Winners’ benefits

a) The first prize consists of

- A National Foreign Relations News Award trophy
- A certificate from the organising board
- Prize money

b) The second, third and consolation prizes include

- A certificate from the organising board
- Prize money

VI. Entry dossier regulations

1. For the author of entry: Full name, pen name, current title, working place, mobile phone number and email are required.

2. For the entry:

- Each entry must be enclosed with a brief introduction of the work written in the Vietnamese language with information on major contents, circumstances of the story, highlighting its value and impacts.

For print and electronic media: the entry must be the original print version or copies with good quality. If the entry includes pieces of paper, these must be pasted on blank paper size A4 or A3 with page numbers and attached with two (02) photocopies.

For TV entries: the work must be written on video compact disc (VCD), digital video disc (DVD) or universal serial bus (USB) with the name of the agency, author, title and type of work, airing time, and any voice-overs in the piece.

For broadcast entries: the work must be recorded on compact disc (CD), with the name of the agency, author, the title and duration of the piece, time of broadcast, and a copy of the transcript.

For press photographs: Along with copies of the newspaper or magazine article including the submitted photos, enlarged versions of the photos on photographic paper sized 18cm x 24cm (single photo) and 12cm x 18 cm (group of photos or photo reportage).

- Entries will be disqualified if they fail to meet any of the requirements stated in this Notice.
- The organisation board will not return disqualified entries.

VII.The chair of the 2014 competition:

The Vietnam News Agency will chair the National External Information Service Awards 2014. The contest is open to press agencies, ministries, sectors and localities, and representative agencies of Vietnam abroad, Vietnam’s friendship organisations, foreigners and overseas Vietnamese. The deadline for submitting entries is March 31, 2015.

Please send entries to:

Professional Training Centre of Vietnam News Agency
Address: Room 306, No. 11, Tran Hung Dao Street, Hanoi
Tel: 04 933 2080/04 933 1079, mobile phone: 0913 547 901 (Mrs. Ngo Hong Thanh), or 0983 65 0078 (Mrs. Nguyen Thu Hien).
Email: giaithuongthongtindoingoai@gmail.com