Seven journalists honored for excellence in humanitarian reporting

 JournalismPakistan.com |  Published 6 years ago

KARACHI — Seven journalists received awards for their outstanding humanitarian reporting at the Humanitarian Reporting Awards on Thursday.

The Centre for Excellence in Journalism at the Institute of Business Administration (CEJ-IBA), Karachi, and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) organized the event.

The awards, held for the third year, promote ethical, accurate, and responsible reporting on humanitarian issues, including violence against healthcare workers, disaster reporting, issues related to people with disabilities, and disaster response/preparedness.

This year, the awards were given in four categories — mainstream broadcast (Urdu), mainstream print (Urdu), mainstream print (English), and online (English and Urdu) for news stories published between September 17, 2018 and August 20, 2019.

The winners and runners-up in the four categories were:

Mainstream Broadcast (Urdu)

Winner: Bushra Qamar – 92 News HD

Runner-up: Sidra Azhar Dar – Voice of America

Mainstream Print (Urdu)

Winner: Muhammad Atif Sheikh — freelance journalist

Mainstream Print (English) 

Winner: Manesh Kumar — freelance journalist

Runner-up: Sabrina Toppa — freelance Journalist

Online (English & Urdu)

Winner: Kaukab Shairani — The Express Tribune

Runner-up: Mahwish Qayyum — freelance journalist

A panel of senior journalists selected the winners and runners-up from 278 entries from across the country.

The jury members included Raza Hamdani, Consultant Editor of The Independent in Pakistan; Dr. Seemi Naghmana Tahir, Chairperson Department of Mass Communication, University of Karachi; Mehmal Sarfraz, Co-Founder of The Current; and Kamal Siddiqi, Director CEJ.

In her keynote speech at the event, former chairperson Human Rights Commission, Zohra Yusuf, lauded the awards. “This is a tremendous initiative. This is an area of reporting that is much needed in Pakistan as well as all over the world because increasingly we see more and more conflicts and natural disasters as a result of which there are many humanitarian crises that need to be focused on.”

Jury member Hamdani, too, pointed out the lack of focus on humanitarian reporting in the country and appreciated the efforts of CEJ and ICRC, saying that “this is a really good initiative and I hope it will continue.”

Jamal Khan, Deputy Head of Delegation ICRC, elaborated on the collaboration with CEJ-IBA, which includes a series of workshops on humanitarian reporting. “This partnership entails a very robust calendar of activity throughout the year.”

Commenting on the hard work put in by journalists he said that “ICRC, along with CEJ is bearing cognizance of the individual commitments and sacrifices made by journalists to uphold ethics of responsible reporting and come together to hold this annual humanitarian award ceremony to recognize these selfless individual commitments.”

Kamal Siddiqi said that the “media is fixated on political stories, and in this climate, the challenge is to tell stories that matter.” He appreciated the support of ICRC in encouraging and supporting journalists in this endeavor. - A CEJ media release