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Herald Correspondent
The Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ) should add more categories to its National Journalism and Media Awards (NJAMA), to allow more competition and professionalism in the journalism fraternity, the team of Njama judges has recommended.
Presenting on behalf of the judges at the Njama awards ceremony held in Harare on Thursday last week, Mr Geoff Nyarota said the judges felt that the competition would have been more exciting with increased diversity of entries from several media houses, especially the community newspapers, as well as more entries from the broadcasting sector, notably radio.
Mr Nyarota said there was a concentration of focus on entries from newspapers as compared to TV, radio and multimedia.
As judges they expressed reservations over the splitting of the category for gender identity and expression category into north and south regions which gave an unfair advantage to participants in the category as other categories had a single national pool of entries.
“This also introduced an element of unnecessary regionalisation into a competition which is supposed to have a national outlook. ZUJ should not have allowed this,” Mr Nyarota said. “In light of the observations we recommended that there be more clearly defined for the benefit of the participants, sponsors and other stakeholders and that the categories are streamlined to achieve a less cumbersome line-up.” ZUJ should retain total control over the definition of the categories and there should be uniformity in prize money across the categories, judges felt.
Mr Nyarota said other categories that could be included in NJAMA were: journalist of the year, investigative journalist of the year, photo-journalist of the year, agricultural reporter of the year, political reporter of the year, municipal reporter of the year, health reporter of the year, motoring journalist of the year, crime and courts reporter of the year, and cartoonist of the year.
“A spectacular effort should be launched to canvas for more sponsorship to support the additional categories. NJAMA is the biggest journalism and media awards event in Zimbabwe. Judges recommend that ZUJ receives maximum support from both the media industry and from commerce and industry in general.
“ZUJ promotes both professional and ethical journalism standards. Promotion of these standards will result in the media fulfilling their roles in society which are critical for development and progress of a nation,” he said.
The media, said Mr Nyarota, was expected to provide reliable, relevant, accurate and timeous information so that the entire citizenry makes informed decisions and choices as it participates in the developmental trajectory or agenda of the country. The awards ceremony was attended by Zimpapers chairman Tommy Sithole, Zimpapers Digital and Publishing general manager Mr Marks Shayamano, chairperson of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Media, Information and Broadcasting Services Sipho Mokone, acting UN resident coordinator Dr Alex Gasasira, ambassador of Palestine Tamer Almassri and senior business leaders among others.
The Herald’s Enacy Mapakame scooped business reporter of the year, while Thupeyo Muleya from the same publication was the customs, transport and freight forwarding journalist of the year. Muchaneta Chimuka from Kwayedza won the Foster Dongozi safety and security journalist of the year and maternal health journalist of the year awards, with Capitalk Radio’s Tobias Mudzingwa scooping the first runner up for the arts, culture and entertainment journalist of the year.
Sunday News’ Lenin Ndebele was mining reporter of the year awards while Ivan Zhakata from The Herald was the first runner up for The Yasser Arafat reporter of the year award and Nkosilathi Sibanda from Chronicle scooping The Yasser Arafat reporter of the year award.
Takudzwa Chihambakwe from Zimbabwe Television Network (ZTN) was local tourism journalist of the year with Liberty Dube from The Manica Post was the first runner up.
Munashe Mukahlera from ZTN was disaster risk reduction and public health emergencies journalist of the year award with Chronicle’s Nqobile Tshili being the first runner up for maternal health journalist of the year and Sino- Zimbabwe journalist of the year.
Chronicle’s Robin Muchetu and H-Metro’s Arron Nyamayaro were the winner and the first runner up for the gender-based violence journalist of the year award.
Kenneth Nyavaya from Alpha Media Holdings was arts, culture and entertainment journalist of the year while Mary Mundeya from News Hawks was the legal and parliamentary journalist of the year and sexual orientation gender identity and expression (SOGIE) for northern region. SOGIE southern region was Sindiso Dube from Newsday.
Lawrence Mangenje from Soccer 24 was sports journalist of the year with Ngoni Dapira from Eastern Times the multi–media journalist of the year. ZBC’s Kenious Chivhuzhe was environment journalist of the year and Kenneth Matimaire from Zimbabwe Independent was ICT journalist of the year.
Online Reporter