The owner and promoter of the 2024 Voyager Media Awards is the New Zealand News Publishers’ Association (NPA), Textile Lofts, Level 4, Textile Centre, 1 Kenwyn Street, Parnell, Auckland 1052.

1.0 Time frame

Entries may be submitted online at www.voyagermedia.awardsplatform.com any time from 10am Wednesday 17 January 2024 until 5pm Wednesday 21 February 2024 (NZDT). The system will automatically prevent entry submission after the deadline. All entrants MUST enter online.

2.0 Eligibility

2.1 To be eligible for entry, all entries must bear cover dates from the 2023 calendar year. For example, a publication that appears on newsstands or reaches subscribers in late December 2023 but has a cover date of January 2024 is not eligible (it will be eligible for the 2025 Media Awards). The same rule applies to journalists’ work appearing in print. A publication that appeared in December 2022 but had a January 2023 cover date is eligible.

2.2 Digital entries must be published within the 2023 calendar year. If an entrant enters a 2023 digital story which is updated in 2024, the entrant must explain the changes in the statement of support box.

2.3 Digital News Provider of the Year will be partially judged live during March 2024.

2.4 Your entry must have been published or broadcast during 2023 in a recognised form of New Zealand-based newspaper, magazine, website, app or television or radio station. Broadcast journalists may not enter a written-only award, unless the entry has appeared in written form on a website.

Qualifying media include:

• Daily and weekly newspapers
• Regional, metropolitan or community newspapers
• News and current affairs websites or apps
• Publications sold at newsstands or by subscription, or a combination of both*
• Free publications with a minimum editorial content of 25%*
• Newspaper-inserted magazines
• Specialist and trade publications and/or websites*
• Local television and radio stations

* Eligible publications must appear at least quarterly and must target a mass audience. Publications comprised largely of native advertising or advertorial without editorial content, will not be eligible.

Eligibility for all awards will be at the sole discretion of the NPA.

2.5 Entrants must be either New Zealand citizens, permanent residents aged 16 and over or students on a working visa and living in New Zealand at the time the work was published. This includes New Zealanders working overseas.

2.6 One entry per person, team, publication/title, or website per award.

The exceptions to this are:

1. Up to a maximum of TWO entries to the same award if one entry is from an individual and one entry is a from a team that you are part of.
2. Media organisations can nominate up to THREE candidates for Editorial Leader of the Year – or up to FIVE candidates for media organisations with an employee base of more than 500.
3. Media organisations may enter Best Innovation in Digital Storytelling and Best Original Podcast or Series multiple times.

2.7 While you can enter as many different awards as you want, you are only able to enter the same piece of work into a maximum of two different awards, otherwise you risk being disqualified.

2.8 Entries must meet all the specific entry criteria set for the relevant award. There are unique criteria for each award.

2.9 Entries and information contained within any entry must have been obtained legally and must not infringe any copyright or other intellectual property rights, must not be defamatory or breach any privacy law, and must not breach any other law or regulation. Eligibility for all awards will be at the sole discretion of the NPA.

3.0 Junior awards

3.1 The junior awards (Best Up and Coming Journalist and Junior Feature Writer of the Year) are open to individuals who have been employed in the publishing industry or active as a freelancer for three years or less at the time of publication. However, you are not restricted from entering other awards.

3.2 Student journalists, including interns, can enter any award, including Best Up and Coming Journalist and Junior Feature Writer of the Year.

4.0 Entry process

4.1 All entries must be submitted through the online entry process. To enter an award the entrant must first register online and then validate the registration. A separate online entry is required to be submitted for each award entered. All entries submitted must fulfil the entry requirements of the chosen award. Inclusion of background information when requested is very important. The length of some entries is determined by the individual award criteria. Entries must not exceed the maximum length or duration. An entry will not be considered submitted until payment for the entry is received.

4.2 Entrants may provide a statement of support giving background to their entry. Each award has a specific word maximum. Please refer to the entry criteria.

4.3 Material must be supplied as follows:

• Written stories should preferably be submitted as URL links – if an online version isn’t available, pdfs are acceptable.

• Photos should be in jpg, jpeg, tif or tiff format and have captions within the file name.
• Videos or interactive/motion graphics can be uploaded in m4v, mp4, mpeg4 or MOV format or, in the case of large files, attached as a URL link such as YouTube or Vimeo.
• Artwork/graphics should be ai or eps format
• Cartoons should be in jpg or pdf format

• Podcasts should be uploaded as a single, clearly-named MP3 (or WAV). You should also supply URL links for each episode, both to Apple Podcasts and to an Android podcast app such as Stitcher or Spotify.

Please give attachments an appropriate name that depicts what the entry is about.

4.4 Multi-part stories are permitted where stated in specific award criteria – but no more than two parts of the series may be presented as one of the required items.  This could be a two-part story, or two parts from a specific series. Follow-up articles to an original story do not qualify as a two-part submission. Include the URL link to the first part of the story in the URL link box and the URL link to the second part of the story within your statement of support. You should also include headlines and publication details for each URL link within your statement of support.

4.5 For awards where hard copies are required to be posted in, these hard copies will not be available for return to entrants.

4.6 All those who have made a significant contribution to the entry should be listed in the entry with one person nominated as the contact.

5.0 Payment and refunds

5.1 Credit card payments for entries will be made to the News Publishers’ Association.

5.2 The Voyager Media Awards are only open to New Zealanders (see 2.5) and entry fees will only be received in New Zealand dollars.

5.3  Payment will only be accepted once the entry has been completed and all entry requirements are met.

5.4 Payment of entry fees will not be refunded under any circumstances and cancellation of an entry is only possible prior to payment of the entry fees being made.

6.0 Privacy policy

The NPA is committed to protecting the privacy of its users and the purpose of this privacy policy is to describe to you how we will use personal information about you that is submitted as part of your entry into the Voyager Media Awards.

By providing your personal information to the NPA, you consent to the collection and use of it and any other information provided to us in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

If at any time you wish to change the use of your personal information to which you have consented, please contact voyagermediaawards@npa.co.nz.

7.0 Personal information

7.1 The NPA may collect personal information about you in the following ways:

• Any data which you provide when you register on its website(s)
• Any data which you provide when you sign up to receive email communications
• Any data which you provide as part of your entry to the Voyager Media Awards
• Any additional transaction with us – either written, by phone or email

7.2 Storage and retention of your information

The NPA will keep your information to enable it to be used for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy. This data will be stored on a secure server. The technology used and the security policies which we have implemented are intended to safeguard your information from unauthorised access and improper use.

7.3 Use of your information

The NPA may use your personal information for the following purposes:

• to respond to any inquiry you make
• to send you email communications regarding the Voyager Media Awards
• the NPA and/or its authorised agent, and sponsors may display or use your entry to promote the Voyager Media Awards throughout New Zealand and overseas
• Cartoonist/Animator of the Year entries may be displayed on a complimentary basis at the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington.

8.0 Naming rights sponsor

8.1 Subject to (8.3), by entering these awards, entrants agree that in the event that they are named a finalist or winner of any award, they must acknowledge the naming rights sponsor’s support of the awards in any report or publicity about their success. This might include the publication of the Voyager Media Awards logo on their masthead or website but only if there is a clear reference to the award in which they were a finalist or a winner.

8.2 Subject to (8.3), by entering these awards, entrants to any of the Voyager Media Awards agree that in the event they are named a finalist or winner of such awards, they (or their publisher) will publish the Voyager Media Awards logo, or include the words “Voyager Media Awards” each time there is a reference to that placement or win in their publication, website, or television or radio station.  This might include publication within a banner on the newspaper front page, magazine cover or website home page.
8.3 Despite the above, entrants may be required to remove or cease using the Voyager Media Awards logo, or to cease referring to the naming rights sponsor where the NPA considers, at its sole discretion, that the association of its brand or logo with any particular category, award or entrant is not in the organisation’s best interests, commercial or otherwise. However, entrants may state they were a winner or finalist in the Voyager Media Awards in a particular award to the extent this is true. By entering the competition, entrants agree to comply with any direction of the NPA or the naming rights sponsor in relation to the use of the Voyager Media Awards logo or any other use of the naming rights sponsor brand.

9.0 Entry fees

Entries from NPA member organisations are charged at $75 +gst per entry, while entries from non-NPA member organisations are charged at $150 +gst per entry. Most media organisations will be invoiced in bulk for their total number of entries shortly after the closing date. If you are a journalist working for one of the organisations listed on the dropdown menu on the first tab of your entry, you should select your publishing group’s name. If you are a freelance journalist, you should select ‘Freelance’ from the dropdown menu and pay by credit card when submitting your entry/ies.

Discounted entry fee:  $75 +gst – This fee applies to entries from NPA members.
Standard entry fee: $150 +gst – This fee applies to all other entries that are not eligible for the discounted entry fee.

NPA members include the organisations shown below and their 70+ community newspaper titles too. If you are not working for one of these organisations then you must select the non-member entry price.