Competition for young journalists from northern Germany

And as one of the world’s preeminent industrial exhibitions, this year's Hannover Messe is once again the perfect location to do this. In April, young journalists from school newspapers and campus media from Hamburg, Bremen, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Lower Saxony will be reporting from Hanover.

For their news articles or radio reports dealing with technology or technical vocational training issues, the young journalists will be able to win prizes such as a TV workshop at the RTL School of Journalism. Lower Saxony’s minister for education, Elisabeth Heister-Neumann, is the patron of this year’s competition.

Researching technology issues, conducting interviews, and writing and submitting reports: Basically, this is what the technology journalism competition at this year's Hannover Messe is all about. The competition is aimed at young people who are active in school newspapers and campus media, or simply enjoy journalism.

The more than 500 students from all over Germany who entered the technology journalism contest in previous years have shown that writing about technology is not just for engineers who have a way with words. As a result, the contest, which is sponsored by the Siemens Drive Technologies Division and ZVEI, the German Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers’ Association, has become a fixture of the trade fair.

Young people interested in journalism can enter the competition until April. The response so far suggests the number of participants in Hanover will be in the hundreds. Around 70 students took part in the voluntary preparation workshops alone (in Nuremberg, Hanover, and Essen). Some of the young journalists, like Florian Steinmann from Bochum, are participating for the second time. “I found it especially good last year that we were taken seriously as young reporters and were treated accordingly,” says the student, who last year took second place in the “Technology Report” category.

The contest for young journalists will take place this year for the sixth time, and for the second time in Hanover. Lower Saxony’s minister for education, Elisabeth Heister-Neumann, is the patron of this year’s competition. Young journalists’ organizations such as Young Press in Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia have put the competition on their agenda. The competition is supported by the German Business Media Association and the RTL School of Journalism.

Young editors of student newspapers and campus media, and young people with a general interest in journalism, can still register to take part in the competition until April 10 on the website www.siemens.de/technikjournalismus . They will be reporting from the Hannover Messe between April 20 and 24. A jury composed of editors and PR officials will evaluate the submissions. The prizes will be awarded in June. The ten best technology journalists will be able to take part in a TV workshop at RTL. Other prizes include internships at professional journals as well as books.