Cook Islands: A Māori journalist wins two Awards

Alistar Kata, a journalist who works with the Pacific Media Centre’s Pacific Media Watch freedom project and Tagata Pasifika has won the Spasifik Magazine Prize and Storyboard Award for Diversity Reporting, as well as the Radio New Zealand International Award for Asia-Pacific Journalism.

The two awards were given to her this week at the Auckland University of Technology’s School of Communications Studies annual awards ceremony. Alistar was in Fiji for two weeks to cover the elections last September and her coverage received a lot of positive feedback. She said reporting on the elections in Fiji had been a career highlight for her.

She said she feels  honoured to be recognised for diverse reporting and Pacific issues, as that kind of journalism is sometimes lacking in mainstream media and  hoped to see more students strive for inclusive and diverse reporting.