HALIFAX, Oct. 19 /CNW/ - The Atlantic Journalism Awards has announced an adjustment to the criteria for entering TV items to the AJAs annual competition.  The changes are effective for the 2010 news year and were formed after consultation with television news media in the region.  Details of the adjustments can be found under Category Definitions at www.AJAs.ca.

The changes include the introduction a new category, Best TV Newscast, which will accept entries from all regional TV news stations. The newscast will be judged from entries broadcast on the same day.  The broadcast day will be selected by the AJAs and announced to news directors after the air date.

Also adjusted are the maximum number of entries allowed per television station in Spot News Reporting, Feature Writing, Enterprise Reporting and Continuing Coverage.  As well, the Photojournalism Spot News TV and Photojournalism Feature TV have been discontinued in favour of allowing TV camerapersons to be nominated along with journalists for any TV story they were a part of producing.

According to AJAs chair Kevin Ward, the changes are one way of encouraging TV entries from all the regional TV stations including, NTV, Global, CTV and regional CBC stations.  "We hope", said Ward, "this change will put everyone on a more level playing field in terms of the judging of entries in these categories. 

There have been no changes to the newspaper, magazine and radio entry requirements. Many of the other AJAs categories accept entries from all media.