PMC students score well in AUT’s annual media awards

Kendall Hutt (left) and Julie Cleaver … two of the award winners at last night’s AUT School of Communication Studies annual awards. They are heading to Fiji on assignment next month. Image: Del Abcede/PMC

Pacific Media Centre affiliated students and graduates have won several prizes at the annual School of Communication Studies awards night at Auckland University of Technology, including the Storyboard for diversity journalism.

The Storyboard and Spasifik Magazine prize went to a young Indian engineer-turned-journalist, Ami Dhabuwala, for her role in the Bearing Witness climate change project in Fiji and as part of a team covering diversity at the World Journalism Education Congress (WJEC) conference in Auckland last year.

The Storyboard was presented to her by PMC advisory board chair Camille Nakhid and the Spasifik prize by editor-in-chief Innes Logan.

Recently graduated, she takes up a job at the Greymouth Star next week.

Pacific Media Watch editor Kendall Hutt won the Radio New Zealand International Award for the top Asia-Pacific Journalism Studies student.

This was presented by RNZ journalist Alex Perrottet, himself a former Pacific Media Watch editor.

Julie Cleaver won the School of Communication Studies Award for excellent in communication theory.

Cleaver and Hutt head for Fiji next month on the Bearing Witness climate change project.

A Pacific student, Hulu Tu’inukuafe, won the FCB Change Agency Award for digital media excellence.

Postgraduate scholarships were awarded to a diverse range of students:  Shirin Brown, Jayakrishnan Sreekumar, Rebecca Trelease and Chao Zhang.

PMC’s David Robie (from left), Pacific Media Watch editor Kendall Hutt, Storyboard and Spasifik Magazine Prize winner Ami Dhabuwala and Radio NZ’s Alex Perrottet at the AUT School of Communication Studies awards last night. Image: Del Abcede/PMC