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Reporter who broke news of 1971 Manamperi murder among recipients of Lifetime Achievement Award
View(s):- Annual Journalism Awards night on Tuesday
The 24th edition of the annual Journalism Awards for Excellence programme culminating with the ‘Awards Night’ will be held in the Empire Ballroom of the Mount Lavinia Hotel on Tuesday, December 12.
The programme is organised by The Editors’ Guild of Sri Lanka in partnership with the Sri Lanka Press Institute and its affiliated unions, the Newspaper Society of Sri Lanka, the Free Media Movement, and the Sri Lanka Working Journalists Association.
The annual programme recognises professionalism in journalism and rewards those who have excelled.
This year, 36 journalists will receive the ‘Pen Trophy’ Award, and 16 others will receive Certificates of Merit, along with five Lifetime Achievement Awardees, namely: H. L. D. Mahindapala, Stanley Samarasinghe, Seetha Ranjanee, S. Thillainathan, and M. A. M. Nilam.
The recipient of the Young Journalist of the Year Award will receive the Lakshman Kadirgamar Memorial Scholarship presented by the Lakshman Kadirgamar Foundation for a course of advanced training at India’s leading school of journalism, MASCOM, managed by the Malayala Manoraman Group in Kerala. The awardee will be flown by SriLankan Airlines.
A record 354 applications from seven newspaper publishing houses were received by the distinguished 13-member independent panel of judges (print media) and the four-member independent panel of judges (online newspapers) this year, said Journalism Awards for Excellence Convener Sukumar Rockwood.
This year’s entries were received for 16 print media categories and two online newspaper categories.
Print Media categories (16)
Mervyn de Silva Journalist of the Year; Scoop of the Year; Investigative Journalist of the Year; Best Environmental Reporter of the Year; Subramaniyam Chettiar Award for Reporting on Social Issues; Sports Journalist of the Year; Denzil Peiris Young Reporter of the Year (under 26 years); Photojournalist of the Year; Best Designed Newspaper of the Year; Business and Finance Journalist of the Year Upali Wijewardene Feature Writer of the Year; Cartoonist of the Year; B. A. Siriwardena Columnist of the Year; Prof. K. Kailasapathy Award for Reporting Under Special Circumstances; Best News or Feature using RTI; and Best Health Care and Medical Reporter of the Year.
Online newspaper categories (02) comprise Best Designed News Website and Best Video Story-Telling.
The main sponsors are John Keells Holdings, Aitken Spence, LOLC Finance, Dialog, Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation, Bank of Ceylon, and Olu bottled water. The Mount Lavinia Hotel is the host hotel.
| Lifetime Achievement Award nominees
H.L.D. Mahindapala began his journalism career at Lake House and rose to the position of News Editor of the Daily News. Thereafter, he went overseas but continued to contribute articles to newspapers on different subjects. In 1990, he returned to the country and rejoined Lake House in the capacity of Chief Editor of the Sunday Observer. He functioned in the position until 1994, and during that period, he served as the President of the Sri Lanka Working Journalists Association for two years.
Seetha Ranjanee began her career in the media in 1979 with the Rajarata Service of the Moving to print media from broadcasting media, she later edited several magazines, including Dharani, Shakthi, Maadhya Nireekshana, Samakali, the women’s magazine ‘Eya’ and the cultural magazine ‘Sankalana.’ She was a founding member of the ‘Yukthiya’ alternative newspaper in 1990, and it was a turning point in her journalism career. In her media career spanning over 45 years, she has mostly worked as a freelance journalist, contributing to various publications, including Irida Lankadeepa,Dinamina, Desathiya, and Ravaya. She has also played an important role as an activist for media freedom and human rights. Her contribution to journalism has been recognised by the Editors’ Guild of Sri Lanka in 2004 when she won the award for best reporting on Social Development Issues and in 2012 when she was awarded the Sepala Gunasena award for Defending Press Freedom.
Born in Colombo on January 24, 1940, Stanley Samarasinghe commenced his media career in 1962 with The Sun newspaper. Mr. Samarasinghe had received further training in the newspaper field in Iraq and the then Soviet Union. With a 58-year career in media, Mr. Samarasinghe has worked at Dawasa, Eththa, Divaina, Dinamina,Daily News, Mawbima, and Ceylon Today newspapers, as well as the electronic media channels of Sirasa. He has served 35 years of his media career as a senior journalist covering the Supreme Court. It was Mr. Samarasinghe who first revealed to the country the controversial killing of Premawathi Manamperi on April 17, 1971, through the Eththa newspaper. In order to uncover the story, which was received at the time through an anonymous source, Mr. Samarasinghe had travelled to Kataragama on a directive from the then Editor of the Eththa newspaper, B.A. Siriwardena, amidst emergency laws and a curfew that were in place at the time. After uncovering the story in Kataragama, he reported the story to the country along with photographs taken by him. The story even reached the international arena, with human rights activists also taking up the case internationally.
Sinnathurai Thillainathan, a native of Vadamarachchi, Puloli, Jaffna, has been working continuously as a regional correspondent for Virakesari, Sri Lanka’s leading Tamil national newspaper, for more than half a century. He took to journalism in 1968 as Jaffna Regional Correspondent of the now-defunct Kandy-based weekly newspaper Seithi. He later joined EezhaNadu, a daily published in Jaffna and worked there until 1985. Mr. Thillainathan, who joined Virakesari as Puloli Correspondent in 1972, was later appointed as Virakesari’s Correspondent for the entire Vadamarachchi region from 1997 to 2009. He was honoured with the award for the best journalist in Jaffna district in 2003 by the Sri Lanka Tamil Media Alliance, and in the same year, The Editors Guild of Sri Lanka presented him with a special award for his news service in Jaffna under trying circumstances. In addition, in appreciation of Mr.Thillainathan’s service, the Point Pedro Divisional Secretariat awarded him the titles of Kalaiparithi and Kalaichakaram.
Mohammed Arif Mohammed Nilam, who was born in 1946, received his early education at the Roman Catholic Mixed School in Negombo. He started his journey in media as the Colombo South Correspondent for Lake House while serving as the Kurunegala District Correspondent for Virakesari until 1983. Mr. Nilam was appointed as a sub editor for Thinakkural Newspaper in 1990, and thereafter he was promoted to senior sub editor there. He served as a consultant for Tamil publications at Lake House from 2015 to 2020. He received the Excellent Journalist Award from the Tamil Journalists’ Forum in 2004, and the Sri Lanka Muslim Media Forum honoured him by presenting him with the Senior Journalist Award. He was honoured by the Ministry of Cultural Affairs with the honorary title Kalabyshanam in 2009. In 2015, he received the lifetime achievement award from the Sri Lanka Press Council. Mr. Nilam was the first Sri Lankan Tamil-language journalist to attend an event at the White House in the USA with former Prime Minister and present President Ranil Wickremesinghe in 2022.
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H. L. D. Mahindapala
Seetha Ranjanee
Stanley Samarasinghe
Sinnathurai Thillainathan
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