Nukta Africa journalists win prestigious journalism awards
By Tulinagwe Malopa
On another victorious day, two journalists from Nukta Africa, Daniel Samson and Rodgers George emerged among the winners of the prestigious journalism awards in Tanzania including data journalism category.
Rodgers and Daniel scooped other journalists who were competing in education and data journalism categories in Excellence in Journalism Awards Tanzania (EJAT) 2020 in a gala held in the commercial capital, Dar es Salaam.
The prestigious awards in the media industry are awarded by the Media Council of Tanzania (MCT) with the aim of promoting an impactful media to the society through 19 categories including data journalism.
Data Samson, who is also an editor, won an award in the education online category while Rodgers George scooped the data journalism online category.
“I believe in a saying that good things take time to happen. I believe this success will be a motivation to upcoming journalists to do great stories and learn everyday,” Rodgers said after winning the award on Friday.
He thanked the Nukta Africa team for the mentorship and continuous assistance in his career as a young journalist.
Daniel said he will continue touching people’s lives through his informative stories that enable people to make informed decisions everyday.
“Through this award, I will keep using my professionalism so that I may keep touching the lives of people and help them make informed decisions,” said Samson.
For the past three years Daniel and Rodgers won various awards in the media industry including best data journalist in 2019 and 2020 respectively awarded by National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). They become the first journalists to win the awards issued by the national statistics body since the awards were introduced in 2019.
Nukta Africa’s CEO & Executive Editor Nuzulack Dausen said Nukta Africa will continue to ensure the public gets accurate information by producing more content that touches people’s lives online.
“What an honour to Nukta Africa and online journalists in Tanzania, we believe we will continue living our mission of touching people’s lives as we have been doing,” said Dausen.
Dausen said the awards will also help the audience understand that there are journalists in Tanzania who are dedicated to producing high quality online content, removing the myth that most digital news outlets in Tanzania publish misinformation.
“We will continue to maintain high standards on our journalism and involve more unheard voices. We will reach remote areas, we will reach them in town… we will follow them even in farms or mines, we will continue to cover their stories as we want to make Nukta, a people’s news outlet,” he said.
Nukta Africa owns the first active Swahili data-driven news website Nukta (www.nukta.co.tz), provides media training on emerging storytelling techniques such as digital journalism, data journalism and provides consulting services on data visualisation and other customised media services.
Apart from team members who scooped awards, there were other journalists who were mentored by Nukta Africa team through a data journalism program in partnership with Internews under Boresha Habari program funded by the USAID.
The journalists are Suzan Moshy from Matukio Daima who Culture and Sports reporting category online media while Martha Sambo ended up being the second runner on Health reporting category for radio.
