South African based media watchdog, Media Monitoring Africa on Sunday announced the 2018 lsu Elihle Awards winners. Director of Media Monitoring Africa, William Bird announced some of the winners, from the SABC, in an interview.
The awards were launched three years ago in November 2015.
Bird says they are trying to encourage fresh new thinking with these awards.
“So we say submit your idea of a story you would like to do. That then gets adjudicated by a range of experts including a panel of children.”
The aim of the awards is to encourage fresh reporting, innovative approaches and insightful investigations that seek to give children a voice and elevate the status of the child all over Africa.
In the past two years, the awards were open only for journalists in Eastern and Southern Africa but in 2018, journalists from all over Africa were included.
The first runner up was Krivani Pillay, from the SABC, who did a series called, Hunger Games: Giving South African children the right life. Pillay won R15000 for her runner up spot
“She told these stories using multiplicity of experts and views to really bring hunger down to an issue that you think about and feel in a way that you don’t normally think about and engage in. It was particularly powerful,” says Bird.
The overall winner and prize money of R25 000 was Jamaine Krige, also from SABC, who did a series of stories on surviving school transport.
“To give an idea of how powerful these things are. In the first episode we hear the stories of eight young people and their dreams of what they would like to become. It emerges as the story goes on that these are the numbers of children that die on our roads every single day. Its talking about school transport,” adds Bird.
LISTEN BELOW TO KRIGE’s SERIES:
LISTEN BELOW TO PILLAY’s SERIES:
For more watch below:
