The winners of this year’s Refugee Festival Scotland Media Awards have been announced at a ceremony in Glasgow.
The awards celebrate the work of journalists in Scotland who have covered refugee and asylum issues fairly, accurately and with great insight over the last twelve months.
This year we received extremely strong entries across categories, including news, features, broadcast and student journalism. A special award was given in recognition and memory of the work of Calum Macdonald, founder of news site Positively Scottish. Full list of winners and runners up is listed below.
Scottish Refugee Council’s interim media manager Pauline Diamond Salim said: “The Refugee Festival media awards are a way to honour and celebrate the quality human rights reporting being done in Scotland. We know we are lucky at Scottish Refugee Council to work with so many talented and committed journalists. It’s a real privilege for us to work with people throughout the year on stories that need to be told.”
The awards were hosted by Scottish Refugee Council in partnership with the British Red Cross and the National Union of Journalists Scotland and were held at Glasgow School of Art.
2017 media awards winners
News category
Winner: Kirsteen Paterson, The National, ‘Charities voice concerns after volunteer penalised’
Runner up: Karin Goodwin, The Herald, ‘Future in the balance for Refugee Support Agency’
Highly commended: Marc Horne, The Times, ‘Child refugees learn to leave trauma behind’
Features category
Winner: Liam Kirkaldy, Holyrood magazine, ‘Finding asylum: Is the UK’s system of asylum support fit for purpose?’
Runner up: Billy Briggs, Angela Catlin and Chris Manson, The Ferret, ‘UK ‘distorts’ torture evidence putting lives at risk’
Highly commended: Jane Bradley, Scotland on Sunday, ‘The secret refugees trapped in Belgrade’s barracks and Condemned without compassion’
Highly commended: Catriona Stewart, Sunday Herald, ‘Burma’s forgotten ghost people: We just want life to begin again’
Commended: Stephen Stewart, Daily Record, ‘I was so lucky to escape’
Local press category
Winner: Jennifer McKiernan, Press and Journal/Aberdeen Evening Express, ‘Into the Jungle with love, goods – and a caravan called Mavis’
Joint runner up: Karen Keith,The Buteman, ‘Bute’s Syrians speak out’
Joint runner up: Magdalene Dalziel and Jennifer Russell, Glasgow Live, ‘Overheard on a Glasgow bus’
Online / multimedia category
Winner: Karin Goodwin, Lyra McKee and Rebecca Omonira,The Ferret, ‘Domestic violence: ‘Home Office must act to save lives’
Runner up: Brindusa Ioana Nastasa, The Ferret, ‘A Second Syria’
Highly commended: David McPhee, Positively Scottish, ‘When inclusivity means a cup of tea and a chat’
Broadcast and film category
Winner: Liam O’Hare, Common Space, Behind the Wire – Dungavel
Runner up: Sharon Frew, STV, ‘Syrian Crisis: Work of Scottish aid agency helping in Lebanon’
Highly commended: Amraine Rasool and Carol Purcell, BBC Sunday Morning with Cathy Macdonald, ‘Discussion: Foreigner, migrant, refugee’
Student journalist
Winner: Shaliz Navab, United Nations Dispatch, ‘There are 53,000 refugees stranded in Greece’
Special Award
Winner: Calum Macdonald, Positively Scottish –
For his powerful commitment to positive and solutions-based journalism
