Free to enter, Mollenhoff Award for Investigative Reporting, prize: $5,000 (USA)

Deadline: 15 March 2011

The Mollenhoff Award for Investigative Reporting is given annually to the best newspaper or magazine story that conforms both to the definition of investigative reporting as originally defined by Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) and to the professional standards articulated by Clark Mollenhoff in his critiques of journalism craft. Recipients may be a newspaper reporter, team of reporters or an individual newspaper showing initiative similar to Mollenhoff's.

Investigative Elements:

It is the reporting, through one's own work product and initiative, matters of importance, which some persons or organizations wish to keep secret. The three basic elements are that the investigation be the work of the reporter, not the report of an investigation made by someone else; that the subject of the story involves something of reasonable importance to the reader or viewer and that others are attempting to hide these matters from the public.

1. Reporter's own work product: This means that the reporter must have initiated and done this investigation. It is permissible to use excerpts from police records, official investigations, etc. but only incidentally and not as primary proof of the investigative conclusion.

2. A Matter of Reasonable Importance: It should be a matter that substantially serves the public interest.

3. A Matter that Others are Attempting to Hide: This is the element that more than any other differentiates investigative reporting from depth and explanatory reporting. Corrupt politicians, for example, don't want people to know they are stealing, so they perform their corrupt acts in ways designed to avoid public discovery. The same applies to polluters, mobsters, price-gougers etc.

The following craft imperatives should be considered towards judging:

1. The story must effectively prove its investigative premise.

2. Anonymous sources rarely belong in investigative stories and their use should be strongly discouraged.

3. The story should be well written and clearly sourced.

4. Good packaging and graphics are desirable.

5. Strong results, while not always attainable, sometimes help validate investigative stories.

6. Since there is only one annual award, a light thumb on the scale should be awarded to smaller publications that produce strong investigative entries despite limited resources.

ENTRY GUIDELINES

1. Submit a brief cover letter on your letterhead, identifying the award you're applying for and a paragraph outlining the story or series.

2. Submit a story or series of stories -- no more than 20 -- in standard eight-and-a-half-by-eleven paper size.

* If series contains pictures, graphs, or other material that do not fit on an 8 X 11 sheet, feel free to send original copies.

3. In a separate section, you may submit any additional stories or back up material considered pertinent.

4. There is no entry form; there is no entry fee.

5. Five copies of each entry are required.

6. More than one series for a reporter, team or newspaper is permitted, but each should be submitted as a separate entry.

7. Stories must have been written for a U.S. publication -- no international entries allowed

Stories must have been published between March 1, 2010 and March 1, 2011.

Prizes:

Winners of each award will receive a $5,000 cash prize and a bronze eagle trophy, which will be presented at an awards luncheon in conjunction the 2010 Institute on Political Journalism in Washington, D.C.

Deadline for entries: March 15, 2011

Submit application materials to:
Professional Awards Committee
Institute on Political Journalism
1706 New Hampshire Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20009
202-986-0384

More information here.