The focus of the inaugural awards (2018) is on “news stories” reported by selected news organizations inside and outside the United States. The time frame for the stories is between January 2017 and October 2018.

For several weeks the organization scouted the internet for some of the best news stories about the African continent. Dozens of articles were gathered and analyzed by Africa Agenda volunteers that included Ryan Chase, Joshua White, George Bamu, and Scott DuPree(Ph.D.)

For the 2020 awards, the volunteers were Renee Harmon(Ph.D.), Kenneth Usongo(Ph.D.), and George Bamu. The time frame for the stories is between December 2019 and December 2020.

We made the decision to not use judges from outside our organization. We felt our own critical and analytical abilities, a skill we are applying with the content on our Africa News Matters website is a principal reason why we exist as an organization. Acting as a critical lens for the community, we used our own standards to weigh these stories. Our selections were ranked according to the below criteria:

1. Truth, accuracy, and facts of each story
2. Fairness (a lack of perceived bias)
3. People connection (who was interviewed)
4. Representation of the community (was there a connection between the story and the community)
5. Importance (priority) and timeliness of each story

A list of the selected news media and stories can be seen through this link.