Mmegi rules over awards night

FREDERICK KEBADIRETSE
Staff Writer | Monday October 11, 2010 00:00

 

He won best sports reporter, best HIV/TB and STI reporter, education reporting award and he was the overall winner walking away P22,000 richer in prize money.

Still from Mmegi, Mbongeni Mguni won best business reporter and lens man, Kagiso Onkatswitse, won photojournalist of the year. The daily also won the best newspaper design.

Other winners were Ntibinyane Ntibinyane of Botswana Guardian who scooped two awards for population and development as well as the productivity reporting award.

Thato Nthite of Botswana television (Btv) won best population and development award in the broadcast category. The Voice reporter Francinah Baaitse won investigative journalist of the year, while her tabloid took the best tabloid design award.

The awards were sponsored by among others, Stanbic Bank, Mascom, Multichoice Botswana, EU, ACHAP, BOSETU, BNPC and the Ministry of Finance. Speaking at the ceremony, the chairperson of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Botswana chapter, Laona Segaetsho, urged the local media to work hard in nurturing the country's democracy and not leave the task to a few individuals to perform.

Segaetsho said the past year has been one of the most eventful, with the country having its general elections, the ruling party splitting and bringing the number of opposition parties in Parliament to three, which are all developments the media has been watching with keen interest to see what they mean as far as legislation on media is concerned.

'I wish, as I scribe my last commentary on this brochure that citizens should help make this democracy more participatory.

We need to involve ourselves in nurturing this democracy and not leave it to a few individuals we believe are fit to do so,' Segaetsho said.

He said Botswana media has asserted itself as true watchdogs in which the public can depend, and therefore it needs to work harder to perfect its trade because its integrity is its ultimate defence.

The deputy head of the European Delegation to Botswana, Lena Sund, commended MISA for its great job as a watchdog. Sund said when she came to Botswana; she was delighted to find the media lively and widely read, listened to and watched.

'I was struck by the way in which newspapers and radio called government to account,' she said.

She also called on the local media to embrace the Internet despite it being a challenge as it ensures that we are a global village.   Sund was representing the head of the European Union (EU) delegation to Botswana, ambassador Paul Malin, who could not make it to the awards ceremony due to ill health.