City University dominated the Broadcast Journalism Training Council’s annual awards ceremony, scooping the top awards for TV and radio as well as two runner-up prizes.
Ramita Navai won the award for TV for her short documentary on the plight of a transsexual, Last Among Equals, which was singled out by the judges as being an insightful treatment of a difficult and sensitive subject. The excellent production values also came in for special mention. Navai’s broadcast career has taken off already – she has recently flown back from Tehran, where she covered the Iranian General Election for the BBC and The Times.
Helen Ledwick won the award for radio from a field of some 70 entries for her piece, BNP – On the up?, on the British National Party in Lancashire. The judges were said to have been impressed by her ability to gain fresh material from her research and to produce a balanced piece in a difficult political atmosphere.
After the awards had been presented by Radio Five Live’s Julian Worricker, including awards for the City University journalism tutors Jan Haworth, Lis Howell and Barbara Schofield, sections from the two winning pieces were played to the audience, made up of leading industry professionals.
Schofield said on behalf of the City tutors: “We are obviously immensely proud of our students as this is an unprecedented success. Our postgraduate diploma in broadcast journalism is a very intensive nine-month course and the winners today really did make that extra effort.
They won through their journalism – all were original investigative pieces which did not follow the crowd.”
The runners-up are as follows: TV runner-up 1: Lizzie Hill of City University with The Battle for London – a look at the plans for a new evening paper in London.
TV runner-up 2: Sally Bruce of University of Central Lancashire with Morecambe Bay Bridge – a look at plans to bridge Morecambe Bay.
Radio runner-up 1: Ayesha Durgahee of City University with Peace on the Streets – an investigation into gun crime.
Radio runner-up 2: David Howard of Cardiff University with Lea’s Story – the story of a woman sexually and physically abused by her parents
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