Fikile-Ntsikelelo-Moya aims his plaintive missive about the Nat Nakasa Courageous Journalism Prize at the wrong target, says Peter Sullivan.
Pretoria - It saddens me that Fikile-Ntsikelelo-Moya aims his plaintive missive about the awarding of the 2014 Nat Nakasa Courageous Journalism Prize at the wrong target. (See related articles below).
Really, as a Star-trained reporter he should have marshalled his facts before launching the attack.
The award is not made by the South African National Editors’ Forum (Sanef).
It is made at their function, something I organised about a decade ago when Print Media South Africa was struggling to get journalists to attend a function to hand over the award, and Sanef was struggling to find a highlight for their annual dinner, held after the Rhein national conference.
So Sanef does not own the award, it is a joint award of the Nieman Foundation, Print and Digital Media and Sanef. There were three judges (of which I was one) who were unanimous in awarding the prize this year, and the reaction from journalists has been overwhelmingly positive, as I am sure Fikile would admit.
Prize rules specify that it can only be given to somebody who has been duly nominated, so the judges could not consider all the journalists on the sub-continent who are suggested by Fikile, only those nominated. Each year we ask, even plead, for nominations and generally get a good-to-excellent crop.
The nominees are confidential. Only the nominator of the winner is revealed and then with their permission.
If Fikile had bothered to nominate somebody I would give his criticism greater weight. He can, of course, rectify this next year by getting off his backside to do so – the judges would welcome it. Let me assure you every single nominee was carefully considered this year by the three judges. Finally, if he cannot understand the rationale of awarding it to Alide Dasnois this year he simply needs to ask the next journalist he sees in the corridor and they will explain why publishing your publisher’s alleged misdemeanors is courageous, regardless of whatever future tribunals might decide about her future employment.
But all is not lost, Fikile: you were courageous, too, in publishing your contrarian views, especially because it will please your owner yet may upset most journalists. Perhaps one day you too will be nominated for a Nat Nakasa and be duly considered by the judges.
* Peter Sullivan is a previous editor of The Star.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Newspapers.
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