TheCable editor, ‘Fisayo Soyombo, shortlisted for 2015 Thomson Foundation Journalist Award

‘Fisayo Soyombo, editor of TheCable, has been shortlisted as one of 12 journalists from across the developing world for the Thomson Foundation Young Journalists Award 2015.

Soyombo, who won the online category of the 2014 Wole Soyinka prize for investigative reporting for his work, Blood on the Plateau, is joined by one other Nigerian, Motunrayo Joel of Punch newspapers.

Other journalists aged 30 or under who were also nominated are from Kenya, Uganda, Cameroon, Sri Lanka, Zambia, Pakistan and India, which led the pack with three nominations.

Entrants were required to submit three of their works published in the 12 calendar months before the August 28 deadline for entering the award.

“Twelve journalists from eight countries in Africa and South Asia have been shortlisted to enter the final of the Thomson Foundation Young Journalist FPA Award 2015,” the organisers said in a statement released on Monday.

“They were selected from a total number of 117 journalists from 30 countries ranging from Brazil and the Ukraine to Cameroon and India.”

The 12 young journalists will now move forward to the next stage when the UK FPA Award judging panel will select three finalists to attend the FPA’s gala awards’ evening on November 24, in London.

In July 2014, Soyombo was shortlisted for the Local Reporter category of the 2014 Kurt Schork Awards in International Journalism, which featured “almost 300 stories entered by 93 journalists from 41 countries”. But the award went to Indian journalist, Neha Dixit, for “her courageous and innovative series of undercover reports on rape published by the New York Times, Outlook India, and Yahoo News”.

Soyombo, a 2013 recipient of the Deutsche Welle/Orange Magazine Global Fellowship for Young Journalists, also writes opinions for UAE-headquartered Al Jazeera and Germany-based TAZ.

The Thomson Foundation awards will form part of the 2015 UK Foreign Press Association (FPA) Awards.

The winner of the 2015 award will succeed Kenyan Maurice Oniang’o, a reporter for MEDEVA (Media Development in Africa), who won in 2014 for his work on child soldiers.

THE FULL SHORTLIST

Beryl Wambani, NTV, Kenya

Bhasker Tripathi, Gaon Connection, India

Caroline Ariba, New Vision, Uganda

‘Fisayo Soyombo, The Cable, Nigeria

Gabriel Benjamin, Concord Times Newspaper, Sri Lanka

Haroon Janjua, Freelance Journalist, Pakistan

Jude Fuhnwi, The Post Newspaper, Cameroon

Kumar Shrivastava, Hindustan Times, India

Mark Asuelaa, KTN, Kenya

Motunrayo Joel, Punch Newspaper, Nigeria

Njenje Chizu, Muvi Television, Zambia

Raksha Kumar, Freelance Journalist, India