Awards Rules

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Categories

For 2024, EWA will accept submissions in seven categories: beat reporting, data reporting and visualization, features, investigative reporting & public service, news, podcast, and student journalism. For more information, review our Categories page.

Maximum number of stories

Three is the maximum number of stories in the following categories:

• Data reporting and visualization
• Features (small, large, education-only)
• News (small, large, education-only)
• Student journalism

Other categories:

• Investigative/public service: Submit up to four stories.
• Beat reporting: Submit up to five pieces.
• Podcast: Submit up to one hour of content. 

Subcategories:

• Broadcast (within features and news): Submit up to 15 minutes of audio or video. Note: 15 minutes is the maximum, but the submission should include up to 10 stories in news and in feature.

Newsroom size

For beat reporting, features, investigative/public service reporting and news reporting, you must enter in the newsroom size division of under 40 FTE or 40 or more FTE. To calculate your newsroom size, count the number of all editorial “full-time equivalent” employees – including reporters, editors, designers, online producers, and multimedia content producers, such as photographers, data analysts and videographers – during the time period the entered work was produced. (Two half-time editors would count as one FTE.) For additional specifics, check out our Awards FAQs. 

Cover letter

Each entry must include a cover letter that describes the entry’s development and impact, if any. Limit the cover letter to a single page.

Logins and passwords

If a password is needed to access the content, supply the necessary details in the cover letter or upload PDFs of your work. For the collaborations category, EWA requests submission letters list all outlets that participated in the production and/or publication of the entry. 

Entry formats

Judges will disqualify any entry that does not adhere to the rules or that is submitted in a format that is difficult to read, listen to or view (broken links, PDFs in which the font is too small, a password for the paywall that doesn’t work, etc.). Please note that multimedia submissions should not be entered in the news broadcast or features broadcast subcategories. 

Other entry criteria

If you are submitting print or digital-text stories, submit no more than three in data reporting and visualization; features, news and student journalism.

Education-only news outlets 

Independent education-only news outlets must submit to the education-only subcategory in beat reporting, features, investigative/public service reporting and news instead of the FTE categories.

Broadcast subcategories

Features and news categories now offer broadcast subcategories.

Journalists for radio and television news outlets should submit to those subcategories rather than FTE subcategories.

Here are the requirements:

• Combine up to 15 minutes of audio or video per entry. Submit two-to-10  related stories in either features or news.
• Video entrants should upload the work to an online video site and submit the URL (preferred), or upload a video file to the awards site. [50 MB file limit]
• All video files must be one of the following formats: .wmv, .mov, .mpeg or .mp4.
• Audio entries must be in the form of a URL (preferred), MP3 or WAV
• The categories include audio or video, not multimedia. If your submission includes print, submit it in one of the other subcategories.

Podcast

Submit up to three education-related segments of a serialized podcast or stand-alone series centered on an education topic to give judges an understanding of what the podcast covered and examples of its creative use of audio, sound and interviews. One hour of audio may be submitted.

Content in other languages

Entries not originally published or broadcast in English should include English subtitles or an English translation.

Repeat content

Any item submitted in one category may NOT be submitted in a second category, except as part of a beat reporting entry. A beat entry cannot include more than one story from another individual category entry. For instance, two of three stories entered into the News category cannot be submitted to Beat.

Fees

Entries must be paid in full by 6 p.m. Eastern on Jan. 8, 2025 to be judged.

Fees for members are $75 per entry until Dec. 18 at 6 p.m. Eastern, and then $125 to Jan. 8, 2025. For nonmembers, fees are $125 per entry until Dec. 18 2024 at 6 p.m. Eastern and then $175 until 6 p.m. Jan. 8, 2025. Pay online when submitting.

Category classification

EWA staff or awards judges may move an entry from one category to another if they determine it is wrongly classified. Our Category page has more specifics.

Judging

Judges reserve the right to forgo awarding prizes in categories they determine have no suitable winners.

Promotion

When you enter any work into EWA’s National Awards for Education Reporting, you are granting us the right to publish excerpts of and promote what you submit — photos, text, videos, etc. — on EWA’s website and through our social media platforms. We do this to highlight the caliber and importance of entries, finalists and winners.

Establishing Image Ownership

EWA Awards applicants must establish ownership of the photos included in their entries. 

Please check the box that best applies:

• The entry uses images owned by me, my outlet and/or copyrighted by me or my outlet.
• The entry uses licensed stock images, Getty Images or something similar my outlet doesn’t own. 
• The entry includes wire distribution photos my outlet doesn’t own. 
• The entry includes a mix of images both owned and not owned by me or my outlet.

Submitting Additional Photos

If the entry includes photos not owned by you or your outlet, please upload 1-2 additional photos EWA can use to promote your work. Photos can be headshots of yourself or images you took with your cellphone for the reporting project. Most importantly, these photos must be owned by you or your outlet and should include the photo credits in the file name.