Maryam Bint Fahad, Executive Director - Dubai Press Club

A few days after the announcement of the closing of participation in the 9th edition of the Arab Journalism Award, Dubai Press Club has unveiled the details of the extent of participation, its geographical distribution and other pointers in the various award categories.

Maryam Bint Fahad, Executive Director, Dubai Press Club, has said that the figures available confirmed the validity and appropriateness of the new structure of the award program.

"The extent of participation in the newly introduced 'young journalist' category proved how important it was. A total of more than 3500 entries from 19 Arab countries have been nominated this year, in addition to participation from Arabic language periodicals from six non-Arab countries. The entries this year represent 13% increase from last year and 339% from the year of the launch of the award," she disclosed.

She said that while 9% of the entries came from online media, the rest was from the print media. "This 9% is significant given that online journalism was introduced into the award program for the first time this year. That 32% of the entries came from women journslists is a welcome development, an increase of 9% from last year," she added.

The largest participation this year also came from Egypt, with 30% of all entries, followed by Saudi Arabia with 11% and the UAE with 10%. Syria and Jordan share the fourth place with 7%. Lebanon maintained the previous year's tally at 6%. Kuwait, which sent last year the third largest number of entries, made it to the sixth place this time with only 5% of the total entries turned in for participation. The Maghreb countries strengthened their participation remarkably this time with the total of entries from Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco taking up 10% of the entries.

The Young Journalist category had the lion's share of the participation, constituting 22% of the entries, followed by Specialised Journalism with 20% and Investigative Journalism with 11%.

The entries will now be handed over to the members of the judging committees, whose details will be kept confidential until the day of the announcement of the award. Once the names of the nominees are finalized by the members of the judging committess, they will be endorsed by the governing board of the award for the final annoucnement of the winners. The award comprises 12 categories.