The CNN/Multichoice African Journalist of the Year is one of the prestigious media awards which will be competed for this year. In this piece, Lekan Otufodunrin brings you some useful career lessons about the winners and winning entries.
Become multimedia skilled
Teblo Timse, reporter of Mail and Guardian Centre for Investigative Journalism SA has a strong print journalism background but in the past has also worked across a variety of disciplines contributing to Photography, audio clips and video footage for online media.
She produces stories and analytical content which is used across the media outlets online and social media platforms as well as in print.
Freelance journalists can win awards
Some of the winners of the 2014 award are freelance journalists. They included Joseph Mathenge, the overall winner of the Journalists of the Year award, a freelance photographer for Saturday Nation, Kenya, Sean Christie for The Mail and Guardian, South Africa and Suy Kahofi for West Africa Democracy Radio, Senegal.
Website stories can win awards
Bob Koigi, seasoned journalist and communication specialist made it to the final based on his story ‘Borstal boys beat change with biogas digesters’ written for Farmbizafrica.com, Kenya.
He is currently Senior Reporter for the online news agency African Laughter where he has worked since 2009.
Ben Ezeamalu and Emmanuel Ogala of Premium Times Nigeria, online newspapers were finalist with their story ‘The Return of the Lagos-Kano Passenger Train’
Photographs are worth a ‘thousand awards’
No other evidence proved this assertion than the winning of the overall prize by Joseph Mathenge whose photograph showed the security forces walking into the Westgate Shopping mall in Kenya when shoppers came under attack from terrorists in 2013. The judges said Mathenge put his life on the line to record what has become an iconic image.
They have won other media awards
Most of the finalists have won several national and international awards in the past for their work.
Olatunji Olalade of The Nation awards includes Ernest Sisei Ikoli Prize for Newspaper Reporter of the Year, Nigerian Media Merit Award (NMMA-2012); Winner of Peace and Conflict Prevention and Resolution Category, Rotary International Humanitarian Reporting Awards (HRA 2013); and 2013 Diamond Award for Media Excellence Prize for Best Political Reporting.
Every story counts
CNN Award-winning stories are not only about ‘serious’ topics that require extensive research and investigation. Bayo Olupohunda, a columnist with Punch made the final list with his story An Encounter with Blackberry Babe based on a chanced encounter in a night club.
Olupohunda, however, beefed up the encounter with details of obsession with mobile phones users
You can with stories on your website
Ossenne Ouattara is featured in the CNN final list as founder of Infodizamzan.com in Cote d’Ivoire.
He began working as a journalist in 2010 for avenue225.com as a correspondent. In 2011 he started freelancing for Humaniteterre, a magazine specializing in aid and sustainable development before founding his own web publication infoduzanzan.com
