16 May 2008
Maputo — Mozambican journalist Fernando Lima, who is a former chief news editor at AIM and currently chairman of the board of the media company Mediacoop, has been chosen as one of the finalists of the "African Journalist 2008", price, sponsored by the prestigious US television station, CNN.
Lima entered the competition with a series of reports and opinion pieces on the floods in the Zambezi valley in 2007, published in the independent weekly "Savana", the flagship publication of Mediacoop.
Lima is a highly experienced journalist, who started his professional career in 1976, a year after Mozambique's independence. He is the only journalist from any of the Portuguese speaking African countries to reach the final.
The list of finalists was announced on Thursday by por Azubuike Ishiekwene, chairperson of the jury, and managing director of Punch Nigeria Ltd. The competition, now in its 13th edition, received 1,912 works of journalism from almost 1,000 journalists from 44 African countries. This is the largest number of entries ever.
The jury selected 24 finalists from 14 countries. There are 16 different categories of prize, some of them general, some specialist (thus there are prizes for reporting on HIV/AIDS, on the environment and on tourism). To be eligible for consideration, the work must have been published or broadcast in 2007.
The final list of winners will be announced at a ceremony in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, on 19 July, presented by CNN correspondent Zain Verjee, and Nigerian television personality, Soni Irabor.
CNN organises the competition in partnership with the South African satellite television company, Multichoice. Sponsors include the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, Coca-cola Africa, the international mobile phone group Celtel, and the west and central African banking group, Ecobank.
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