ANNUAL JOURNALISM EXCELLENCE AWARDS
ANNUAL JOURNALISM EXCELLENCE AWARDS (AJEA) 2012
Smriti Vidyarthi
Mauritius Oduor
Smriti has been a news anchor and reporter for NTV since 2008. She fronts major live events and breaking news, conducts interviews with influential figures and frequently reports on daily assignments and features. Before joining NTV, Smriti was a business news anchor at K24. She holds a BA in Theatre and Performance Studies from the University of Warwick (UK) and a Masters Degree in International Broadcast Journalism from City University London (UK).
Oduor has been working for Citizen TV as a cameraman since 2007. Before then he was a trainee at KTN having graduated from Kenya Institute of Mass Communication with a diploma in Film and Video Production in 2007.
Oduor is MCK winner of the Best Cameraman of the Year 2012 Award for his courage in covering the Kenyan Defence Forces military intervention in Somalia dubbed ‘Operation Linda Nchi’.
Stephen Mwei
Her motivation behind her competence, believability and likeability during news anchoring, interviewing and reporting skills emanates from her ability to cover a story from the very beginning (reporting on the field) to the very end (delivering the story to the audience).
Mwei has been a cameraman for NTV since 1999, where his duties include covering news and news production. In 2005 he was awarded the overall cameraman of the year award by the Kenya Union of Journalists. In 2007 he and his reporter won the CNN Multichoice African Journalist Award in the environment category.
Job Mwaura
Mwaura, 25, is a vibrant news reporter at Citizen TV and hopes to infuse fresh and creative ideas into the electronic media in order to impact the lives of his audience positively and also to achieve the best he can in his journalism career.
In 2009 he attained a certificate in live TV Broadcasting from AUB-FIFA Broadcast Academy and in 2011 he was trained and awarded a certificate in TV news by Reuters. Mwei and his reporter won in the Developmental Award category for their story ‘The 5 Maasai Solar Engineers’ about some five Maasai grannies who were returning home after a six-months training in Solar Engineering in India and who successfully installed a lighting system in one of the mud-plastered houses in their village (Manyatta). This was meant to save them from various respiratory ailments brought about by air pollution in their unventilated huts.
He won the Young Journalist of the Year Award (TV category) for his story ‘Kitoweo Tatanishi’ (Sewage vegetables) about a chunk of land in Njiru area of Nairobi, where a group of people use sewage water to grow vegetables that are later sold to unsuspecting buyers in supermarkets.
Mohammed Ali
RADIO
Mohammed often takes the risk of going the extra mile to expose the evils in our society through his various TV exposes such as the on the disciplined forces, youth and drugs, Track-it saga, the Artur brothers story and the one terrorist Abdullah Fazul. His winning story ‘Paruwanja la Mihadarati’, which was about the highly connected drugs cartels in the country and the execution of innocent police officers, was one of his best researched and well executed exposes.
KIOKO KIVANDI
Kivandi has been a radio journalist in Nakuru since 2007. Before joining Radio Amani in 2009, he worked at Sauti ya Mwananchi Radio, having moved from Baraka FM in Mombasa. He issues of democracy and good governance, especially after his training on Conflict Sensitive Reporting by Internews. At Radio Amani he hosts the morning show. So far he has covered the aftermath of the 2007 post-election violence in the Rift Valley, especially in Nakuru, Naivasha, Rongai, Molo, Likia and Njoro. He has also covered land conflict in Likoni, Mombasa Island, Kwale, as well as in Eldoret and Nyeri.
Mohammed had to flee the country after airing the names of top government officials, businessmen and women and senior police officers suspected to be behind the 2004 cocaine haul in Malindi and Embakasi in Nairobi. Before the airing of the story, some police officers framed and arrested him for stealing a mobile phone, a crime he denies committing. The deal was to make him drop the names of some big shots, top cops and the Statehouse connection in the drugs story. He however stood his ground and aired the story despite the threats. 10
The motivation behind his winning story ‘Kilio cha Wakenya Walio Uganda’ (The Cry of Kenyan Refugees in Uganda) was the need to expose the lack of Kenyan Government commitment in bringing back Kenyans who fled to Uganda following post-election violence.