Marina Bidoli of the Financial Mail has emerged as the overall winner of the Telkom ICT (information, communications and technology) journalist of the year awards for 2003, with Ivo Vegter (ITWeb Brainstorm) and Robyn Chalmers from Business Day placed second and third.
The awards were presented at a banquet at the Sandton Convention Centre on Tuesday evening. Bidoli’s won R25 000, as well as a trip to Malaysia and the United States as a guest of Telkom’s strategic partners — Telekom Malaysia and SBC Communication — while the winner of each category will receive a R10 000 cash prize.
In the electronic category, Arthur Goldstuck from Gadget took first prize, followed by Belinda Anderson from Moneyweb and Rodney Weideman from ITWeb. In the broadcast television section, Grant Nelson & Nikki Berryman from Ingwe Productions for Carte Blanche took first place and Kim Cloete from the SABC and Jo-Anne Roodt from Summit TV shared the third prize.
In the mainstream newspaper category, Robyn Chalmers from Business Day took first place, followed by freelance David Shapshak, who writes for the Mail & Guardian and ThisDay. Gugulakhe Masango from Business Report took third place.
Ivo Vegter, from ITWeb Brainstorm and Marina Bidoli from the Financial Mail were joint winners in the business magazine category. Duncan McLeod from the Financial Mail took second place.
Gugulakhe Masango (Business Report) won the new journalist prize, followed by Tshepo Ikaneng from the SABC and Stephen Whitford from ITWeb. Tshepo Ikaneng also earned a commendable mention in the broadcast radio section as well as Jacci Babich in the community newspaper section.
“Marina’s work is just remarkably consistent,” said judge Alison Gillwald, who is the research director of Wits University’s Link Centre.
“She has a good grasp of the business. She brings the facts behind the facts. She goes a little bit further and I think the strength of her work is that not only does it win a business category for its vigour and insight, but is able to win an overall category where she’s brought us some of the drama that’s unfolded in the sector this year.”
Judge Mondli Makhanya (editor of the Sunday Times and former editor of the Mail & Guardian) said: “Marina understands her subject very thoroughly. She makes sure that a million voices are reflected in her stories and the reader walks away very well informed. Our three winners delved into a subject which is normally dealt with by seasoned journalists and they dealt with the matter in a very professional way. I think it bodes well for journalism that people are looking beyond the traditional beats of politics, health and crime and are actually going into a very cutting edge issue such as ICT”.
This year the competition attracted about 190 entries in eight categories. Many of the entries came from writers for business magazines, with recurrent themes including liberalisation, development and black economic empowerment in the ICT sector. Specific topics covered in depth include the SNO (second network operator) process, regulatory changes, privatisation and developments in technology.
This year Telkom broadened the scope of the awards by initiating a competition among art students to design the trophies being presented to the winning journalists. Five entrants from the Tshwane University of Technology had their designs selected.
The judges for this year were Mondli Makhanya, Andile Mazwai (CEO, BJM Securities), Nick Worrall (trainer at the Institute for the Advancement of Journalism), Tholoana Qhobela (chairman, Ogilvy PR South Africa) and Alison Gillwald (Research Director of the Link Centre — Learning, Information, Networking & Knowledge at the University of the Witwatersrand).