Kenyans conquer the continent at CNN Journalism awards


The 2011 CNN African Journalist of the Year is Kenyan journalist Fatuma Noor, who writes for The Star.
Her investigative series on Al Shabaab impressed the judges of the prestigious all Africa awards, now in its sixteenth year. Fatuma’s series won in the Print General News award, and made her the overall winner.

 

Three other Kenyan entrants won in their categories: Kamau Mutunga of the Daily Nation won the Sport Award, and Internews trainee, Citizen TV’s Sylvia Chebet and colleague Kimani Githae walked away with the Economics & Business Award for a captivating story showing what an “uphill task” it is to make a cell phone call in the county of Marsabit, in rural Kenya. Watch on Youtube
Another Internews trainee, Beryl Ooro of K24, won the HIV/AIDS Reporting award.  This makes Kenya the country with the most winning entries. Their stories were chosen from among 1407 submissions from 42 nations across the African continent.

 

Beryl tells the story of 89 year old Silvanus Olunga, from Butula, who is HIV positive.
The judges praised Beryl for looking at an issue that has always been there, but has been completely overlooked by the media: older and even elderly people, who are HIV positive. “This is journalism at its best, which goes beyond the ordinary”, said the judges’ citation. When Beryl walked to the stage at the event in Johannesburg, she charmed the audience by being speechless … at first! She made a quick recovery then spoke about what the award means to her.
“I am now even more motivated to push for excellence in journalism”, says Beryl. She would like to use the opportunity to expand the HIV slot on K24, “Hope Beyond”, and to talk to colleagues about introducing more online tools for the channel.


M-Net on dstv will broadcast the ‘Highlights Programme’ of the Award Ceremony in July.

  • Broadcasters in 45 countries on the African continent will be transmitting the ‘Highlights Programme’ during July.
  • Internationally, the ‘Highlights Programme’ will be shown on OBE TV in the UK, The Africa Channel in the United States/UK and on RTP Africa.
  • CNN International’s longest-running feature programme, ‘Inside Africa’ will include a report on the Awards on Saturday 2 July at 1730 BST.

This is high visibility for a team of journalists that has made Kenya proud. 
Community