Any Ghanaian Journalist who wins the prestigious 2005 CNN African Journalist of the Year Award would get a bonus of 5,000 dollars in cash from Global Media Alliance (GMA), the organisers of the awards.
Mr Edward Boateng, the Managing Director of GMA and the Founder of the CNN African Journalist Awards, said the extra amount would be his personal donation to the winner, who would make him proud by winning the 10th trophy since the inception of the competition.
Mr Boateng, who was speaking at the launch of the 2005 edition of the competition slated later in the year, said the CNN had a four-year commitment with Multichoice Africa starting from this year to make the competition grow bigger and more competitive.
More than 100 winning Journalists have already been recognized for their reporting excellence since the competition began in 1995.
Mr Boateng said the competition had set the standard for an initiative by CNN to launch similar competitions worldwide, thereby demonstrating its commitment to the journalistic community.
He said the CNN has also announced the addition of a general category of news thereby expanding the competition to include entries in Portuguese for Journalists in Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and Sao Tome and Principe.
He urged all Journalists, who were interested in he competition to study the rules carefully before submitting their entries to avoid disqualification.
Mr Sam A. Johnson, Acting General Manager of Multichoice, said his Company was proud to collaborate with CNN to improve the awards.
He said telecasting the event live to worldwide audience would give recognition to outstanding African Journalists, whose tireless work and search for the truth might otherwise not receive the recognition it deserved.
The CTS Group of Companies also announced that it would sponsor the M.K.O Abiola Print Journalist Award for the best Print Story in the General News Category of the competition.