THE TRUST AND SONY

Building on the success of last year's Awards, The Rory Peck Trust and Sony Business Europe have been working closely together to find ways to build the charity's presence in Europe and to win it new supporters in the international broadcast community.

There have been a number of milestones along the way; including the development of Award criteria, an Evolution of News event, a launch and industry debate, and the creation of a European judging panel.

Development of Award Criteria
Talal Aburahma's footage set a high standard in 2001. It also injected a humanitarian aspect to the Sony International Impact Award - something that Sony and the Trust were keen to encourage. As a result more emphasis has been placed on the footage's portrayal of the struggle to maintain humanity in the face of adverse events. The Award still acknowledges a freelancer who provides iconic and stirring footage, but it will also reflect mankind's ability to survive, adapt
and hope.

Judging
The Sony International Impact Award was identified as an opportunity to involve existing and new supporters on mainland Europe - the Trust established a continental judging panel of broadcasters - chaired by the head of news for the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) - which met in Sony offices in Paris and consisted of representatives from the RTVE (Spain), RAI TV (Italy), France 2 (France), ARD (Germany), BBC World (UK) and Sony.

Launch
Sony has been a supporter in all areas of the Trust's work, particularly in raising awareness of the organisation. An opportunity to promote the work of the Trust went hand in hand with the launch of the awards at the German Embassy in London back in June. Representatives from all aspects of the news industry attended the evening which signalled the call for entries for 2002 and included a panel discussion, with a number of key spokesmen giving comment on the question: "Video journalism: more politically powerful or physically dangerous than ever before?"

This event followed on from a debate earlier in the year called the "Evolution of News" which brought broadcasters, freelancers, Sony and the Trust together to discuss the changing shape of 'news' in the light of technological and broadcasting advances.

Lap-top editing
Last year, Sony gave a DV camera to Talal as part of his award - the company also gave the Freelancers' Choice winner, Raisa Talkhanova, a similar camera on
hearing of how she'd fled her country as a result of her filming, and consequently had no equipment. This year, the company will be presenting the Sony
International Impact Award winner with a Purple Vaio, laptop-editor, a piece of equipment that is gaining popularity in the freelance world as it cuts down on time spent editing and offers compatibility, flexibility, speed and practicality.