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Call for entries: 2023-24 MIPA Student Media Contests

Call for entries: 2023-24 MIPA Student Media Contests

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To: MIPA Student Media Advisers
From: Jeremy Steele, MIPA director
Subject:  2023-24 MIPA Contests

We’re excited to roll out information for all of our annual contests. Please don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions. MIPA is committed to assisting our members to make it easy as possible for you and your students to submit entries.

Deadlines

Most of our contests share a single deadline — Feb. 23, 2024. Print newspapers and newsmagazines, news websites and broadcast programs may enter our Spartan Critique contest until March 17 under the late deadline.

Please carefully review the information in this call for entries.

  • Yearbook individual categories 1-33 (from your 2023 book): Feb. 23
    • Yearbooks can begin submitting in late spring/early summer, once their book is published, so some programs already have submitted entries.
  • News, Digital Media & Video individual categories: Feb. 23
  • Student Journalist Staff for outstanding graduating seniors: Feb. 23
  • Aspiring Young Journalist for outstanding middle school students: Feb. 23
  • Golden Pen Award for amazing advisers: Feb. 23
  • Administrator of the Year for supportive principals, superintendents and other school admistrators: Feb. 23
  • John V. Field Award for a friend of scholastic journalism: Feb. 23
  • Spartan Critique deadline for Print Newspaper/Newsmagazine, Website or Video Broadcast: Feb. 23
  • Spartan Critique LATE deadline for Newspaper/Newsmagazine, Website or Video Broadcast: March 23, with a $40 late fee
  • Judging Day: Saturday, March 9, in person at Michigan State University or join us remotely

Contests Overview

  • Please go to https://mipamsu.org/contest-central to get all contest information. You can also find all contest information by clicking on the Contests & Awards menu at MIPA’s website.
  • Award winners will be announced during a live, online ceremony. (We have delayed our return to an in-person ceremony due to transportation and substitute teacher shortages that would prevent many of our member schools from attending an awards ceremony.) A schedule for awards announcements will be released later in the spring. You will be able to make arrangements to have award certificates shipped to you.
  • It’s important to carefully read category descriptions and contest rules. Failure to follow contest directions may result in your entries being disqualified.
  • YOU MUST BE A MIPA MEMBER TO ENTER CONTESTS. Membership information, including a member list that is updated weekly, is available at https://mipamsu.org/membership. Membership in MIPA runs the academic year.
  • All entries must be submitted by the deadline to be eligible for awards. Entries submitted by mail must be postmarked by the deadline. Entries submitted electronically must be uploaded using MIPA’s contest submission system by 11:59 p.m. on the deadline day. Payment is due by the same deadline.
  • We are using the same online systems as last year to run contests. Some systems require you to make a new account to submit entries.
  • PLEASE DO NOT ALLOW YOUR STUDENTS TO CREATE THEIR OWN ACCOUNTS TO UPLOAD INDIVIDUAL CATEGORY CONTEST ENTRIES! You should have only one account for your media program. It’s OK with us if you allow students to use your account to help submit entries.
  • DO NOT RELY ON YOUR CENTRAL ADMINISTRATION OFFICE TO MAIL CONTEST MATERIALS! It’s best to go to the post office yourself and mail the package! It is too important to you and to your students to risk letting it go through school mail. And to be even more sure (especially if you are mailing it on the deadline day), ask to see the postmark on the package and then get a receipt. We also recommend you get a tracking number.
  • Please keep a copy of each of the forms that you send for your records. Also, please don’t hesitate to contact the MIPA office if you have questions at 517-353-6761 or ask@mipamsu.org.
  • A Cut Above, MIPA’s showcase of first-place contest winners, is available online at http://acutabove.mipamsu.org. This website features first-place winners in each division of previous contests to help you get an idea of what judges are looking for. (We are still working to add winners from last year’s contests to the site.)

*We cannot guarantee critiques submitted for the late deadline will be returned by our awards announcements. Spartan submissions postmarked after the late deadline may receive a critique, but will not be eligible to receive an award ranking. Late entries will NOT be accepted for the Individual Category Contests.

Avoid Problems. Read the Instructions!

Each year, MIPA’s staff spends many hours trying to fix problems with entries because we don’t want them to be disqualified by judges for simple mistakes. Please help us solve the most common problems by carefully reading category descriptions!

  • Nearly all problems we ran across in last year’s contest were because entry instructions were not followed.
  • Carefully check over any entries uploaded into the contest system by students. See the contest how-to guide for information on how to view and edit entries.
  • We strongly recommend that you submit original photos AND the final designed pages for photography categories. It helps judges more accurately determine the quality of an image.
  • Double-check to make sure entries are submitted into the correct category. Entries submitted into the wrong category will be disqualified. You must delete and then resubmit any materials submitted into the wrong category.
  • A few categories are limited to 1 entry. Descriptions clearly identify these categories.
  • Please plan ahead so your contest entry fees are processed by the contest deadline. It can take school business offices a few weeks to issue checks or make credit card payments.
  • If an entry is one of several similar items on a page, make sure it is very clear which item should be judged!

Find these materials at mipamsu.org

These are the items you will find at the MIPA website on the contest page. Look for the Contests & Awards menu at the top of the page:

Spartan Critique – Feb. 23/March 23

Your newspaper, new website or video program will be evaluated against MIPA’s standard. You’ll receive written comments and your program will receive an award based on the score.

Special Honors – Feb. 23

Please consider nominating worthy individuals for any of these awards. (Student honors require specific application materials from students.)

  • Student Journalist Staff for outstanding graduating seniors, including All-MIPA scholarships and JEA Student Journalist of the Year-Michigan Representative
  • Aspiring Young Journalist, for outstanding students in their final year of middle school. The winner will be submitted for JEA’s national competition to compete against students from other states.
  • Golden Pen Award, a recognition for an outstanding student media adviser
  • Administrator of the Year Award, for a principal, superintendent or other school administrator who goes beyond expectations to support student media
  • John V. Field Award, for a friend to scholastic journalism

Individual Category Contests – Feb. 23

Students’ work will compete head-to-head in one of more than 100 categories! Awards are given to individual students or student teams.

ACES – OUR CONTEST SUBMISSION SYSTEM

  • We use the ACES platform – Advanced Contest Entry System – designed by our friends at the Illinois Press Association for the Individual Category Contest.
  • Each MIPA member will need to register for a new ACES account – even if you had one last year. Your ACES account is separate from your MIPA website login.
  • View video tutorials on how to use the new system in our “how to” guide
  • All categories in our contest use the same fields. Some categories use fields differently, so it’s important to read the instructions for each category.
  • If you can’t find your media program in the pre-programmed list, please contact the MIPA office before you begin uploading.
  • Enrollment data for your school is pulled from the most recent numbers available from the Michigan Department of Education, or in a few cases from other publicly available databases (like MHSAA or the federal government). For yearbooks, the enrollment number actually is the number of pages in your most recent published yearbook.
  • If you run into any problems, please contact the MIPA office. We’re happy to help you!

WHAT’S NEW FOR THE 2023-2024 CONTEST?

Every year, we try to improve MIPA’s contests to keep up with changing technologies and the world of media. We also are constantly working to make the contests easier to enter and manage. Here are some changes for this year’s contest:

GENERAL RULES REVISIONS

  • We’ve added a note about work created via generative AI to the contest general rules. MIPA does not explicitly ban work created with AI, but such work must still meet all other contest rules and restrictions.

NEW CATEGORIES

  • In News Writing, we’ve added News Coverage in a Series to replace Follow-Up News Coverage.
  • In Video Journalism, we’ve split the News Story/Package category into two new categories:
    • School-Related News Story/Package
    • Community News Story/Package
  • In Video Production, we’ve added the category Sports Promo or Hype Video

CATEGORY REVISIONS

  • The News Art & Illustration categories have been renumbered and grouped with News Design and Information Graphics categories.
  • Interactive Graphic was eliminated as a standalone category due to low entries over numerous years. Entries can be submitted into the Information Graphic category, which has been slightly revised.
  • In Video Journalism, we’ve renamed the Localized News Analysis category as Localized News Story/Package and updated the category description to better reflect desired entry content.