Best radio news or interpretation of international affairs
AWARD YEAR: 2006
AWARD NAME: The Lowell Thomas Award 2006
RECIPIENT: Joe Richman
AFFILIATION: Radio Diaries and National Public Radio
HONORED WORK: “Thembi’s AIDS Diary”
This is a compelling account of a young woman’s fight against the pandemic that is sweeping Africa. Thembi Ngubane, a resident of the sprawling South African township of Khayelitsha, spent a year recording her feelings about the disease, her fears about having a child of her own and the pain of telling her father about her illness. The judges felt that this was an example of radio at its finest: powerful, creative and deeply moving. Superb editing, which compacted 50 hours of raw tape into a half-hour documentary, allowed Thembi to tell her own story while simultaneously illustrating the political and social tensions roused by AIDS in a nation still trying to overcome the legacy of its apartheid past.
Citation for Excellence:
Renee Montagne, Jim Wildman, Bruce Auster
National Public Radio
“Afghanistan Five Years Later”