SWAM to coordinate Airtel Top 8 Media Awards
Airtel Malawi, sponsors of the elite football tournament, the Airtel Top 8 Cup has announced their partnership with Sports Writers Association of Malawi (SWAM) to coordinate the media awards for this year’s tournament.
The Top 8 Cup is set to kick off this Saturday at Bingu National Stadium and submissions for the media awards will start from Saturday 13 May until 31 May 2017.
Speaking about the partnership Airtel’s CSR & Corporate Communications Manager Norah Chavula Chirwa said they had handed over the coordination of the media awards for Airtel Top 8 to SWAM to ens ure that the awards were ha Ndled professionally and objectively.
“As a professional body for sports journalists in the country, we felt that SWAM was the right authority to coordinate the awards by setting the appropriate eligibility and submission standards for participating journalists,” Chavula Chirwa explained.
According to Chavula Chirwa, the Airtel Top 8 media awards Will have 5 categories namely;Best Print, Radio, TV, Online and Photojournalist with the prize for each category pegged at K200, 000.
Speaking on behalf of SWAM, chairperson of the body Peter Kanjere expressed optimism that the partnership with Airtel Top 8 will go a long way in uplifting the quality of Malawi sports journalism standards.
“In respect of our constitutional mandate to encourage, promote and objectively reward sports journalism excellence in Malawi, there will be an independent panel of renowned media trainers from the University of Malawi who will critique all submissions for the inaugural Airtel Top 8 Cup Media Awards,” Kanjere further explained.
This is a first of a kind partnership between the media fraternity and football tournament sponsors in the country and according to SWAM’sKanjere, entry criteria will be a maximum of 3 entries per category.
Furthermore, the judge’s decision on the winners will be final and SWAM’s Executive Committee will not be involved in the vetting and selection of the winners in any way” emphasized Kanjere, who has declared himself ineligible for the award to avoid conflict of interest.
For more information about th e criteria and submission details for the Top 8 media awards, interested sports media practitioners can visit the FAM website www.fam.mw
