European Journalism Center launches 2010 blogging competition

BRUSSELS, Belgium – The European Journalism Center, a Netherlands-based non-government organization and watchdog, launched here on Tuesday the 2010 European blogging competition, a worldwide event focused on the Millennium Development Goals.

The competition, dubbed TH!NK3: Developing World,  will cover issues on sustainable development such as water, food, health, housing, education, tourism, business, cooperation and other development issues ahead of the United Nation’s 65th session of the General Assembly in September.

Two Filipina journalists including The STAR and VERA File’s Avigail Olarte have been selected jointly by the Ateneo de Manila University’s Konrad Adenaeur Asian Center for Journalism and EJC to participate in the competition, along with roughly 100 other journalists and journalism students from around the globe, mostly from the 27 member European states.

The competition, which runs from March 24 to Aug. 31 will require participants to regularly post articles on the different issues and hopefully stir debate from experts around the globe.

During the opening of the two-day launch here on Tuesday, EJC director Wilfried Ruetten urged participants to blog on solutions to the different developmental issues.

He said that everyday media reporting can drown complex issues such as development problems.

“We should understand development. We should be aware of it and find out what development is and look at how to do things differently....What we should do is to look at solutions as much as conflicts. It’s not just an objective reporting exercise,” said Ruetten.

Martina Ponti of the UN Millennium Campaign said the key challenge for competition participants is how to “keep the momentum today on the issues that require long-term policy responses.”

This year’s contest is the third round of TH!NK ABOUT IT, also initiated by the EJC.

The first blogging round in 2009 gravitated towards the 2009 European Parliamentary Elections.

The second round of blogging competition focused on the issue of climate change, winners of which were sent to the UN conference on climate change in Copenhagen last year.

This year’s participants were required to attend the two-day launch here to discuss the rules of the competitions and to listen to speakers discuss different development issues.

TH!NK3: Developing World will also offer the project’s top bloggers the chance to cover the issues from the field via reporting expeditions to Asia, Africa and New York City.

In order to qualify for these awards, participants must blog at least 20 times throughout the competition.