QUESTION: Are graduate students allowed to enter their work in Best of The South?

ANSWER: No. SEJC bylaws and BOTS rules do not allow graduate students to enter the annual competition. They may attend SEJC, however are ineligible to participate in the competitions. In order to participate, it would require a change in the contest rules which are approved by the SEJC membership at the annual business meeting each February.

QUESTION: Can I submit videos for the Best Public Service Journalism award?

ANSWER: Yes.

QUESTION: When we are entering student’s videos for the individual categories, do we need to capture the actual show that ran the package or can we have them re-export the project for this competition/the web?

ANSWER: Students do not have to take the packages from the newscasts. They simply may re-export those packages. However, they must list the date and time the packages aired.

QUESTION: Although I have read the entry rules for the School awards categories, I am still a little confused on what the difference is between Best College Video News Program and Best College TV Station. Could you elaborate on the differences between the two?

ANSWER: The difference between the College TV Station and the Video Program categories is that the video program allows Internet-streamed newscast entries, the TV Station does not allow Internet-streamed newscast entries.

QUESTION: If two students worked on three hard news videos together, is it permissible for the students enter those videos into the Best TV Hard News Reporter category?

ANSWER: Yes, this submission would be considered to be both students one allowable entry, unless one of the students is your school’s special designee. In that case, your special designee could still enter one additional individual category.

QUESTION: Would a VOSOT that aired on our show work as one of the packages?

ANSWER: The stories must be packages. VOSOTs will not be considered.

QUESTION: In the Best TV Journalist section, are the three individual stories packages, or reads/VOSOTS in studio? 

ANSWER: Packages.

QUESTION: I need to go back and make a change to a couple entries I submitted last week. Is there a way to do that?

ANSWER: Yes. Email the BOTS Contest Coordinator and SEJC Vice President Hilary Gamble at hgamble@aum.edu.

QUESTION: If a student enters the TV Hard News or TV feature categories, can she also enter the Best TV Journalist category?

ANSWER: No, unless that student is your school’s special designee.

QUESTION: Do we have to upload entries to YouTube- or can we submit the URL for each entry already uploaded to a special page of entries from our own website?

ANSWER: Upload videos to YouTube, Vimeo or similar service and submit URLs with entry. If already available online, submit URLs with entry.

QUESTION: We have several newspaper stories with jumps to be entered in individual categories. Is there any way to submit them as two PDFs, one for each page, or do we need to create a special PDF linking the two?

ANSWER: You can upload the entire pdf of the day’s paper or you’ll need to create one pdf linking the two.

QUESTION: For press photographer, in the past we’ve been able to attach the stand alone photo to where it was published, is this a possibility for this year? 

ANSWER: We’ve asked everyone to submit pdfs of the published pages/photos.