Four Nigerian Journalists made the short list of 16 in the 2016 Kurt Schork Memorial Fund Awards in International Journalism.
Those nominated for two categories of the award are Fisayo Soyombo of The Cable, Motunrayo Joel of The Punch , Olatunji Ololade of The Nation and Philip Obaji.
Freelance category – James Harkin (Ireland), Antony Lowenstein (Australia), Jeong May (Canada), Sara Williams (UK/Canada), Sophie McBain (UK), Eric Reidy (USA), Iona Craig (Ireland) 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), Umer Ali (Pakistan) and Brian Ligomeka (Malawi).
This year’s awards attracted 93 entrants – 37 Freelance and 56 Local Reporter – from 36 countries. Each entrant had to submit three articles published between June 1, 2015 and May 31, 2016.
Articles published by Foreign Policy, The Guardian, The Nation, Matter, Al Jazeera America, The Intercept, Newsweek, GQ UK, Harpers Magazine, Guardian Long Read, New York Times, The Daily Beast, Newsweek Europe, Vice News and New Statesman are represented in the Freelance Journalist category shortlist.
The Local Reporter category finalists were published by TheCable, El Tahrir, Masrawy, Hindustan Times, Outlook, The Wire, The Nation, Equal Times Magazine, Earth Island Magazine, Global South Development Magazine, Dawn, Pakistan Today, News 24, The Sunday Times and Sunday Punch.
The winner in each category will be announced in September.
The 2016 Awards Ceremony, hosted by the Thomson Reuters Foundation in the Thomson Reuters Auditorium, Canary Wharf, London, is on Thursday evening, October 27.
The judges for these, the 15th annual awards, are freelance journalist and author Anna Husarska, Co-Founder of Eyewitness Media Hub, Sam Dubberley, Reuters Middle East Editor, Samia Nakhoul and Richard Sambrook, Professor of Journalism, Cardiff University.
Established in 2002, the $US5,000 awards honour American freelance journalist Kurt Schork, who was killed in 2000 while on assignment for Reuters in Sierra Leone. The awards recognize the work of reporters who seek to illuminate the human condition through courageous reporting of conflict, corruption, human rights transgressions and other key issues.
The annual awards are in two categories: the first recognises the often unacknowledged work of local reporters in developing nations or countries in transition who write about events in their homeland.
The second is for freelance journalists who travel to the world’s news hotspots, often at great personal risk and with little personal protection, to witness and report the impact and consequences of major events.
