BEACH SAND mining in Tamil Nadu, a tobacco giant’s campaign to get around the global anti-smoking treaty, the aspirations of women cricketers in Punjab, the life and death of those who keep our cities clean.
BEACH SAND mining in Tamil Nadu, a tobacco giant’s campaign to get around the global anti-smoking treaty, the aspirations of women cricketers in Punjab, the life and death of those who keep our cities clean.
These and many more such stories and images, captured accurately and fearlessly, will be honoured at the 13th edition of the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards in New Delhi on January 4.
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who will be the chief guest at the function this year, will hand over the awards to 29 winners in 18 categories — across print, broadcast and purely-digital — for outstanding work done in 2017.
This year, the Indian media was at the centre of the #MeToo campaign, which saw several women journalists speak out against sexual harassment at the workplace and forced a Union Minister to step down from his post. To understand the movement and the role of editors in ensuring a safe working environment for employees, the awards on Friday will be followed by a panel discussion on the subject, ‘#MeToo in the Newsroom: What editors can and should do’.
The panel will have four women editors and newsroom leaders: Dhanya Rajendran, co-founder and editor-in-chief of The News Minute; Meenal Baghel, editor of Mumbai Mirror; Ritu Kapur, co-founder and chief executive officer of The Quint; and Rupa Jha, head of Indian Languages, BBC World Service.
The discussion will be moderated by The Indian Express’s Deputy Editor Seema Chishti.
The discussion will be followed by a Q&A session with the audience.
The Express Group instituted the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards in 2005 as part of the centenary year celebrations of its founder, Ramnath Goenka. The awards aim to celebrate excellence in journalism, recognise courage and commitment and showcase the outstanding contributions of journalists from across the country.
The most prestigious annual event in the Indian media calendar is a recognition of the highest standards of journalism. Over the years, the winners have produced work — often in the face of political and economic pressures — that generates and sustains public trust in the media and impacts the lives of people.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu, former prime minister Manmohan Singh, former president A P J Abdul Kalam, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, former president Pratibha Patil and former chief justice of India P Sathasivam have been chief guests in earlier editions of the Awards.