Several KP journalists among 13 awarded for stories on health

CEJ director Kamal Siddiqi says health is a neglected area in Pak journalism; emphasises need to do more

PESHAWAR: Several journalists from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were among the 13 winners of the excellence awards in health reporting for news stories published between July 1, 2015 and June 30, 2016.

The awards were given at a ceremony held at Centre for Excellence in Journalism at the Institute of Business Administration (CEJ-IBA), Karachi.A press release said the CEJ-IBA and Centre for Communication Programmes Pakistan (CCPP) organised the first ever “Excellence in Journalism Awards 2016.”

The winners of mainstream broadcast (TV, Radio) are Ovais Ahmed Tanveer and Danyal Hasan, Dawn News while the runners-up are Safdar Hussain Shah and Saifullah Cheema.The winners of mainstream print/online are Zofeen T. Ebrahim and Muhammad Salman while the runners-up are Izharullah, Sameer Mandhro and Moniza Inam.

The winners of district correspondents (print, online, TV, Radio) category are Adnan Khatri and Mohammad Shahid while the runners-up are Amjad Ali and Nisar Ahmed Khan.Besides, the work of three senior journalists including Mukhtar Alam (Karachi), Asif Chaudhry (Lahore) and Shahida Parveen (Peshawar) were also recognised for their vast contribution in health journalism.

Speaking on the occasion, CEJ director Kamal Siddiqi said: “Health is a neglected area in journalism and we need to do more in terms of highlighting the issues that relate to health in Pakistan.” He added that these awards would recognise people who have written on health and encourage more reporting on this subject.

CCPP Director Atif Ikram Butt said that his organization decided to recognize the
journalists for the best work with the aim of encouraging them. He said that journalists were mostly facing various problems in the field, including lack of salaries and security, and such awards supported and encouraged them. He said they would continue to do more such projects for the journalist community.

The panel of judges included Rahimullah Yousufzai, resident editor of The News Peshawar, Wusatullah Khan, freelance journalist and talk show analyst from Dawn News, and Farah Zia, editor of The News on Sunday.

On awarding journalists for health reporting, senior journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai said it’s a good initiative to recognise the crucial work that has been largely ignored. “Health reporting would have been even more limited if we had no polio or dengue virus,” he added. 

Commenting on the importance of such initiatives, chief guest Dr Seemi Jamali, executive director at Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) said: “Both the public and private sector have to play a bigger role in training journalists to report on issues like health with the knowledge that is required for such assignments.”