Finalists Of 2008 Rory Peck Awards For Features And News Announced

The Rory Peck Trust has announced the three finalists shortlisted for the Rory Peck Award for Features, which recognise in-depth stories that look beyond the immediacy of news, and the three finalists nominated for the Rory Peck Award for News, which focuses on the immediacy of a news story. Both awards honour the bold approach and initiative of freelance journalists that lead to agenda-setting global news coverage.
“It is easy to assume that, like us, freelance camera people are merely observers to the tragedies, disasters and conflicts that they are sent out to cover, said Tina Carr, Director of the Rory Peck Trust. Sadly, however, this is rarely the case. These awards acknowledge the immense courage that freelancers take to provide us with an unbiased perspective of worldwide events.”
The winners will be announced at the Rory Peck Awards at The British Film Institute, Southbank, in London on November 13th.
The finalists of the 2008 News Award are: Clifford Derrick: Kibera Slum, which takes the viewer into Kenya's notorious Kibera Slum at the height of the post-election chaos and shows how its impoverished residents bore the brunt of the violence; Abdullahi Farah Duguf: Two Weeks In Mogadishu, which shows shows distressing scenes of violence, destruction and human misery in Mogadishu as the insurgency erupted into almost daily battles on the streets; and Subina Shrestha: Down The Irrawaddy Delta, which is about survivors left stranded after cyclone Nargis hit the Irrawaddy Delta in Myanmar.
The judging panel was chaired by Nigel Baker, Vice President of Business Operations, EMEA and Asia, Associated Press and is made up of: Mike Inglis, Cameraman, Sky News; David Lloyd, Visiting Professor of TV Journalism, City University; Jonathan Munro, Deputy Editor/Director Newsgathering, ITV News; Jennifer Siebens, Vice-President Europe and London Bureau Chief, CBS News and ; Fran Unsworth, Head of Newsgathering, BBC News.
The finalists for the 2008 Features Award are: Rodrigo Vasquez: Inside Hamas, which covers the reality of daily life in Gaza under a Hamas government; Tim Hetherington: The Other War, which is an eyewitness account of the daily physical and emotional struggles of soldiers from the Second Platoon of the 173rd Airborne fighting in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan and; Vaughan Smith: Grenadiers Fighting In Helmand, which offers a rare view of what it was like to be a British infantry soldier in Helmand last summer and the hazards of training Afghan troops while in battle.
The judging panel is chaired by freelance producer/director Caroline Pare and includes: Dorothy Byrne, Head of News and Current Affairs, Channel 4 Television; Isabel Jubert, Freelance Producer; Brian Kelly, Cameraman, CBC; Mark Perrow, Commissioning Editor, Features, BBC TV News Channels; Alex Sutherland, Freelance Consultant/Executive Producer.
(KMcA)