Sharon Atieno, journalist and online editor at Science Africa, is among the winners in the 2024 Annual Journalism Excellence Awards (AJEA) held by the Media Council of Kenya (MCK).
The Awards seek to recognize the courage and commitment of journalists in collecting, investigating, and processing data and information professionally for the benefit of their audiences.
Atieno won the award under the agriculture and food security – digital category for her story on “The Quest for Sand: Turning Farmlands into Harvesting Sites.”
The story focuses on how residents in several villages across Homa Bay County are giving up farming to focus on sand harvesting. This in turn has resulted in food insecurity in the affected areas. Additionally, it calls on the need to regulate sand harvesting to make the activity more sustainable through land rehabilitation and other measures.
The story is part of Beneath the Sands, produced in partnership with the Environmental Reporting Collective. A partnership that brought together journalists from 12 countries to expose how a weakly regulated industry overlooks the environmental destruction and human toll of the highly lucrative and low-risk business of sand mining.
“This award goes a long way in proving that with the right resource allocation, journalists in smaller media outlets can produce stories that are as great as or even better than journalists from bigger and more established outlets,” Atieno said.
The Council received a total of 1,081 entries across 18 categories which went through a two-phase judging panel. Of these about 70 winners were awarded.
According to Judy Kaberia, Chairperson AJEA 2024 Judging Panel, the various entries submitted showed numerous efforts by journalists to churn high quality work.
“However most stories submitted this year did not meet the threshold required due to certain challenges such as lack of resources from media houses. We call upon media houses to put more resources in empowering their journalists. Winning the AJEA award needs allocation of resources,” she said.
On his part, David Omwoyo, MCK’s Chief Executive Officer, observed that this year’s awards had unique entries which showcased an improvement in the country’s journalism. Some of the improvements came from vernacular stations with one entry standing out for its translations and captions, thereby increasing its audience reach.
The event was presided over by the Attorney General, Justin Muturi, who noted that the media plays an important role in shaping public opinion and that in a world full of disinformation, its role in relaying ethical information cannot be understated.
“Journalists are guardians of truth and credibility depending on adherence to ethical standards. The profession has set off code of conduct principles and standards which they are expected to uphold in their workplace,” he said.
“This code ensures fairness, impartiality and accuracy in reporting required for journalists to verify information for balanced coverage. The people you serve expect the very best of you.”
The Awards marked the peak of World Press Freedom Day held annually on 3rd May. This year’s theme was ‘a press for the planet: Journalism in the face of the environment crisis’.
