The leading financial and personal finance journalists of South African can now compete directly with one another in the same category, following changes made to the Citadel Words on Money Journalism award, announced today.

Previously entrants received awards for outstanding work per media category - magazines, radio, television, etc. - but will now receive accolades based on broader content and not for a particular reporting medium.

"The award is now in its ninth year and following deliberation with our esteemed panel of judges, we redeveloped the award to create new opportunities to reward journalists for excellence in this select field of business reporting," says Citadel CEO, Keith Betty.

"We are confident that the new award will attract even more entries than in recent years and we are excited about the possibility of enticing journalists who have not participated previously. Also, we anticipate even tougher competition than ever before between the leading journalists who have been selected winners of Citadel Words on Money awards in the past," Betty said.

The total prize money for the awards will be increased from R61 500 to R70 000.

The new categories for the awards are: breaking news; analysis and opinion; best feature; consumer education; the Chairman's award for investigative journalism; newcomer of the year; and the category previously only about reporting on hedge funds has been expanded to reward coverage of issues about all alternative investments. In addition to these categories, an overall winner will be selected by the panel of judges.

The judges who assisted with the redevelopment of the award are Ms Prem Govender, Chairperson of the Financial Planning Institute (FPI), Mr John Arnesen, Chief Executive of the FPI and Mr Robert Brand of the Pearson Chair for Economics Journalism at Rhodes University.

Previous overall winners of the award are:
2000 Stephen Cranston, Financial Mail
2001 Bruce Cameron, Personal Finance
2002 Stafford Thomas, Financial Mail
2003 Marc Hasenfuss Finansies & Tegniek / Finance Week (Now FINweek)
2004 Alec Hogg, Moneyweb
2005 Bruce Cameron, Personal Finance
2006 Charlene Clayton, Personal Finance
2007 Bruce Cameron, Personal Finance

In 2007 Bruce Whitfield was the winner of the print category for features about bank charges written for FINweek; Steven Jones of Moneyweb was the winner of the electronic category for various features about tax matters published on the web sites of Moneyweb. Stephen Cranston of Financial Mail was the 2007 winner of the Chairman's award for investigative journalism and Julius Cobbett, also of Moneyweb, the winner of the Peregrine hedge fund award.

The closing date for entries for the 2008 awards is 25 January 2008. Details are available on the Citadel web site at "Press Room" at www.citadel.co.za.

ISSUED BY:

CITADEL

For further information please contact:

Daleen Cornelissen
Media Liaison
Tel: (012) 470 2500 or 083 302 0827
daleenv@citadel.co.za