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Rawalpindi journalist Umer Ali wins Kurt Schork Memorial Award
JournalismPakistan.com | Published: 9 September 2016
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Umer Ali has been honored with the Local Reporter award at the Kurt Schork Memorial Awards. His work highlights critical issues like blasphemy laws and minority rights in Pakistan.Summary
ISLAMABAD - Pakistani journalist Umer Ali (pictured) has won the Local Reporter category in this year’s Kurt Schork Memorial Awards in International Journalism.
He will receive a cash prize of US $5000 to be presented at an awards ceremony at the Thomson Reuters auditorium in London on October 27.
The Rawalpindi-based journalist is to be honored for elegant and concise prose that did not shy away from unpopular issues, officials at the Kurt Schork Memorial Fund said.
“I am truly humbled to have won such a prestigious award. I'm thankful to the jury for considering my stories, which highlight the unfair blasphemy laws and mistreatment of minorities, to be worthy of winning,” Ali told JournalismPakistan.com. “By using this win as a motivation, I want to encourage youngsters like me to take journalism as a profession seriously.”
The judges said: “Tackling sensitive issues such as blasphemy law and ethnic tensions in a country where journalism is a dangerous occupation” made his writing exceptional. His winning stories were published by Dawn and Pakistan Today.
Iona Craig, an Irish journalist based in London, won the Freelance Category award for her undercover reporting of Yemen’s civil war for Al Jazeera America and The Intercept.
This year, there were 93 journalists from 36 countries who submitted 279 published stories.
The other finalists this year were:
Freelance category– James Harkin (Ireland), Antony Lowenstein (Australia), Jeong May (Canada), Sara Williams (UK/Canada), Sophie McBain (UK), Eric Reidy (USA) and Philip Obaji (Nigeria).
Local Reporter category – ‘Fisayo Soyombo (Nigeria), Aylaa Abo Shahba (Egypt), Chitrangada Choudhury (India), Montanrayo Joel (Nigeria), Olatunji Ololade (Nigeria), Ray Mwareya (Zimbabwe) and Brian Ligomeka (Malawi).
Key Points
- Umer Ali won the Local Reporter category at the Kurt Schork Memorial Awards.
- He received a cash prize of $5000 for his outstanding reporting.
- Ali's stories address sensitive topics such as blasphemy laws and minority mistreatment.
- The awards ceremony will be held in London on October 27.
- A total of 93 journalists from 36 countries participated.
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