So that we may continue to use the Better BNC platform as a submission and organizational tool for our annual Newspaper & Digital News Media Contest, the IJEA board recently voted to approve a modified fee structure for participating schools.
Until now, schools entering our spring contest paid a modest entry fee in exchange for unlimited entries. The new structure will keep the price of the school entry fee the same but limit the number of entries included with it and will add a per-entry charge for all additional entries submitted by each school.
IJEA’s primary objective in making this change is to generate enough revenue from each year’s contest so that the contest entry platform pays for itself. This decision results from consecutive years of the Better BNC platform costing us considerably more than the contest brings in.
Beginning with our upcoming contest, the entry fees will be as follows:
• The school contest entry fee will stay at $20.
• The entry fee includes five entries in any category.
• For additional entries beyond the first five, the fee will be $5 per entry.
With these changes, a school would pay—at minimum—$20 for five entries, or at the most, $290 to enter every available per-school contest slot.
The IJEA board understands that the fee increase is not an insignificant one for many Illinois high school journalism programs but also believes that these new fees are reasonable when compared to similar news contests in other states and at the national level.
The contest will continue to allow schools to submit two entries in most categories, a submission feature most other contests do not permit.
We thank you for understanding our efforts to be good stewards of our resources as we attempt to minimize the financial burden that running this contest has placed on our organization each year. We look forward to continuing to recognize your dedicated and driven student journalists for the outstanding work they’ve been producing.
If you have any questions, please reach out to a board member. If you work for a school that is financially unable to continue to participate in the contest because of these changes, we want to hear from you as well, so that we can better gauge the impact of these changes.
Thank you! The March 15 entry deadline will be here before you know it, so start pulling together your publication’s best work. We’re looking forward to seeing it!
