Wins at Amnesty Media Awards for Channel 4

30 May 2012

Channel 4's News & Current Affairs was recognised at the Amnesty International Media Awards last night which celebrate the best in human rights journalism. They were presented by Sky News anchor Dermot Murnaghan who said: "In a world where the media is sometimes equated with frivolity or worse, Amnesty Awards winners are role models for our profession."

Sri Lanka's Killing Fields, Jon Snow's searing investigation into the final weeks of the quarter-century-long civil war between the government of Sri Lanka and the secessionist rebels, the Tamil Tigers, won the Documentary Award. (Watch here.)

Director Callum Macrae and Producer Zoe Sale received the award and thanked all the people who had made the film possible - including the contributors, fixers and translators.

"Mani" - the journalist behind Channel 4 News' revelatory report into the bombardment of Homs in Syria - was honoured with the prestigious Gaby Rado award. Named after the foreign correspondent who died in 2003, the award is for journalists who are new to human rights issues. Mani, previously a teacher, decided to expand his love of photography into a journalism career in 2009.

His first film (watch here) which aired on Channel 4 News in February 2012, provided unprecedented clarity amidst an onslaught of grainy, unverified images from the besieged town of Homs.

It was described by judges as, "moving, powerful and compelling" and has been commented on by politicians here and across the international community.

Mani's film was also shortlisted in the TV news category, a judge in that jury said "Mani is the future." Channel 4 News Foreign Affairs Correspondent Jonathan Miller was also commended for his continuing coverage of Sri Lanka in this category.

Also nominated in the Gaby Rado Memorial category was Jenny Kleeman for her Unreported World reports - Nigeria: Sex, Lies and Black magic; Uganda's Miracle Babies; Honduras: Diving into Danger.

Fellow Unreported World reporter Evan Williams was nominated in the Magazine Supplement category for ‘The 1000,000 ghosts of Baghdad' a feature he wrote for Live, Mail on Sunday.