Women journalists across the globe are urged to apply for the prestigious 2021 Fetisov Journalism Awards (FJA) which offers financial rewards of over $140 000.
The deadline for entries is August 1.
While the cash prize attracts top journalism talent from across the world, a limited number of women come out tops.
Of the 35 shortlisted stories in the 2020 annual Fetisov Journalism Awards, 11 of them were individual works by women journalists, three of which were winning entries of women journalists. Furthermore, three were collaborative works by both men and women journalists.
The Namibian newspaper founder and editor-in-chief Gwen Lister joins this year’s FJA judging expert council panel and said she hopes more women apply.
“The more role models we have in this regard will encourage young women around the world to become committed journalists themselves,” she said.
Dialogue at the African Investigative Journalism Conference (AIJC2020) highlighted that women investigative journalists struggle to find acceptance and acknowledgement. Shortlisted Kenyan journalist Gloria Aradi explained that nearly winning the Fetisov Journalism Awards made her realise that women journalists are not only talented storytellers but present important issues compellingly.
“In my category of Contribution to Civil Rights, the majority of the shortlisted stories were produced by women. For me, this just went to show that women are at the forefront of speaking out on the issues in their communities and are excelling at it” she said speaking to frayintermedia.
Gloria was shortlisted in the contribution to civil rights category for her series of stories “Help Me Bury My Mother Who Has Been in Morgue for Two Years”, “I’m Paying Sh. 20,000 for 58 Years for the Body of my Pre-Term Baby” and “Family Holds Emotional Memorial Service as Body of Son Is Detained at Gertrude’s Hospital” published in The Standard Newspaper. One of the stories in the series revealed how hospitals in Kenya detain patients and corpses until bills.
Other FJA categories include outstanding investigative reporting, outstanding contribution to peace and excellence in environmental journalism, where high-quality shortlisted and winning stories produced by women journalists from around the world were in minority in the 2020 second annual Fetisov Journalism Awards.
While gender representation in the media remains a key issue, declining press freedom has also been an issue, according to a 2020 Democracy under Lockdown report.
For example, at least 80 countries have introduced rules and regulations that deny and compromise journalistic practices as well as violate human rights.
The majority of these are in developing countries and this has put a strain on reporting principles leading to an escalated need for more resilient and inventive approaches by journalists to ensure they are serving the public interest.
Lister said the future of journalism is in serious jeopardy.
“It is important to constantly remind oneself of the essential public interest role of our craft and its indispensable contribution to well-functioning societies,” she said.
According to the regional analysis of the Reporters without Borders (RSF) 2021 index, journalists have faced a series of challenges, including being attacked and arrested and being detrimentally affected by disinformation and stringent laws.
“23 of the 48 countries African countries are now marked as red or black on the World Press Freedom map, meaning the situation is classified as bad or very bad,” the report disclosed.
Three African journalists won awards at the FJA in 2020. This includes Nigerian journalist Philip Obaji who scored third prize in the Outstanding Contribution to Peace category for his story “The Child Refugees ‘Sold’ Through Facebook”.
Another winning entry was a cross-border InfoNile collaboration for “Sucked Dry: Huge Swaths of Land Acquired by Foreign Investors in Africa’s Nile River Basin Export Profits, Displace Communities”. The investigation was led and published by InfoNile, a collaborative cross-border group of geo journalists, in partnership with Code for Africa. The report won third prize in the Outstanding Investigative Journalism category.
Nigerian Fisayo Soyombo won second prize in the Outstanding Investigative Journalism category for his “Undercover Investigation on Nigeria’s Criminal Justice System” report.
Soyombo’s story revealed how police bribery in Nigeria worked, where innocent people were arrested and then officers would ask for bribes in exchange for their release. It also highlights that there are strategic exaggerations of charges, where the severity of charges against suspects are escalated to justify their arrest.
Speaking to frayintermedia, Soyombo explained that “every setup that rewards hard work and merit will always reap in bounties [...] if this recognition helps drive journalists to produce more critical than routine reporting, it’s society's gain”.
While accepting his award at the 2020 award ceremony, Soyombo dedicated his achievement to those who have found themselves on the wrong side of justice.
"[This is] simply because they did not know the right people in power," he said.
Read more about the awards here
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