Tongan journalist Indira Stewart has won this year’s Le Mana Pacific Award at the Voyager Media Awards.
The award recognises excellence in the coverage of Pacific issues over a portfolio of stories and judges said that Stewart’s work, “showed a sustained mix of newsworthiness and exclusive content, beautifully written and presented based clearly on a deep set of contacts that enabled the excavation of new material to bring the stories to light.”
Stewart is an online journalist for 1News/TVNZ and last year was a presenter on the network’s week-day Breakfast news show. She was formerly at Radio New Zealand, and had freelanced for Tagata Pasifika.
In fact, two other finalists on the night were Tagata Pasifika reporters John Pulu and Soana Aholelei.
And that wasn’t the only Pacific-themed story recognised on the night, the documentary ‘Our Country’s Shame’ made for the TP+ Platform was also a finalist in the Best Current Affairs (long) or Documentary category.
The documentary looks at the Pacific people who gave evidence at the recent Abuse In Care government inquiry.
Held at a black-tie event in Auckland on Friday night, the Voyager Media Awards spans four categories, including Written; Audio, Digital and Video; Photography; and All Media.
Some of the big winners on the night included Tracy Watkins for Editorial Leader of the Year; Hawke’s Bay Today for Voyager Newspaper of the Year; Michael Craig for Photographer of the Year; Lawrence Smith for Video Journalist of the Year; Stuff for Digital News Provider of the Year; Sam Sherwood for Reporter of the Year; Alexa Cook for News Reporter of the Year; and Ellen Rykers for Feature Writer of the Year.
Martin van Beynen, Mike Fletcher and Todd Niall were individually recognised with Outstanding Achievement Awards for their contribution to the industry.
“The News Publishers’ Association is honoured to manage the Voyager Media Awards which brings together the news media industry of New Zealand each year to celebrate and recognise the very best in trusted, local, quality journalism,” says Brook Cameron, GM of the NPA.
