Hortense Rose, assistant general manager, corporate communication at the National Housing Trust (NHT), presents the inaugural NHT Journalism Award to George Davis, news presenter of Nationwide News Network(NNN) which won the 2012 Trophy for excellence in reporting on sustainable development and affordable housing. The winning entry was a television feature on life in Riverton City and the Pedro Keys, entitled “A Roof At Any Cost: The Riverton and Pedro Cays Experience”. The award was accompanied by the NHT trophy and a cheque for $300,000 – the largest cash prize presented on December 7, 2012 at the Press Association of Jamaica’s Annual Awards Banquet held at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in New Kingston. This year’s award attracted nine entries: four from the print media, four from television and one from radio. In his report, the Chief judge, Dr Hopeton Dunn, director of the Caribbean Institute of Media and Communications and professor of communications policy and digital media at UWI, highly commended the entries from second-placed winner Dara Smith of TVJfor her entry “Caribbean Terrace Remembers” series, and Natalie Campbell of IRIE-FMfor her entry “Long Walk Home” which placed third. The NHT had announced the journalism award last year as one of the projects to commemorate its 35th anniversary celebrations. The award is intended to encourage, recognise and reward excellence among media practitioners in researching, analysing and writing on sustainable development and housing issues. More specifically, the award will seek to encourage journalistic works which explore and report on the extent to which the country is creating “an appropriate framework for sustainable planning”, and ensuring “safe, sanitary and affordable shelter for all”, in line with outcomes 15-2 and 15-5 of the sustainable urban and rural development strategy of Vision 2030. Other judges for this year’s awards were Wayne Chen, president of the Jamaica Employers’ Federation; Robert Buddan, NHT Board member and lecturer in the Department of Government at the UWI; Diana McCaulay, CEO of the Jamaica Environment Trust, and Dr Rohan Lewis, dean of the Faculty of Education and Liberal Studies at the University of Technology.
More...
More...