The General Secretariat of the Arab Journalism Award – represented by the Dubai Press Club – announced several fundamental changes to the general system of the award.

These include adopting new standards for judging and reviewing the conditions for nominations in various categories. The aim is to improve the competition level to ensure it keeps up with the changing Arab journalism scene, including the developments in content creation, publishing and distribution and can handle the exponential growth in the number of participants from within and outside the Arab region. The participation registered the highest levels last year since its launch, with more than 5,500 entries from 32 countries.

The changes being made to the Arab Journalism Award system coincide with the preparations to launch its 17th session. The session aims to create a qualitative leap in its journey as the most important Arab event to celebrate excellence in journalism. This will be a crowning glory to its rich journey of honouring a vast group of elite thinkers and writers in the Arab world, while becoming a prominent platform in this field, as one of the most important media awards specialised in journalism at the international level.

Mona Ghanem Al Marri, Secretary-General of the Arab Journalism Award and President of Dubai Press Club, stressed that efforts to develop the award would continue during the upcoming stage, as an extension of a long journey, during which the award adopted many changes to update itself over the course of 15 years of existence. It was able to maintain its exceptional stature, thanks to the trust and appreciation of the Arab journalism community and the efforts of the General Secretariat to ensure that the award should always be at the forefront as a catalyst for creativity and proficiency in Arab journalism.

She praised the efforts of the award’s Board of Directors, who strongly supported all the stages of its development. She also complimented the sorting and judging committees for carrying the responsibility of choosing with integrity, neutrality and transparency, while adhering to the standards of an integrated professional framework for comparing competitors.

She clarified that the changes were made to the award to monitor the best creative Arab journalism and grant them recognition for their ideas and contributions in enriching Arab journalism.

The Secretary-General of Arab Journalism Award added that the coming years would witness more developments in the award, which would continue to be a leading Arab event, concerned with celebrating excellence in the field of journalism and upholding its value and impact to encourage higher levels of creativity in the profession.