Zita crowned as SA’s best
The walls in her office show the numerous awards accumulated over years for her outstanding performances as both journalist and photographer, but now one of the most sought after awards in the local media industry will adorn her office.
WITBANK NEWS journalist Zita Goldswain proudly received the award as Journalist of the Year at the 2013 MDDA-Sanlam Local Media Awards on Friday, May 23 at the Birchwood Hotel in Boksburg.
The Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA) in partnership with Sanlam aim to recognise excellence in community media (print, radio and television), small commercial media (print) and local media owned by the mainstream media (print) in South Africa.
A record amount of 750 entries were received this year.
The judges in their comment said that they were looking for versatility, initiative and tenacity in a journalist and also the impact the stories had on the community. “Zita impressed with her large variety of strong stories,” they said.
Zita was also one of the three finalists in the Hard News category as well as Investigative Reporting category. Two of her photos also received mentions in the feature/portrait and sport photo categories respectively.
Other WITBANK NEWS journalists who also featured were Samantha Traill, who was among the Top 10 finalists in the Journalist of the Year category, as well as the Hard News category. Solly Maseko was one of the top 10 performers in the Sport Writing category and Clive Dorrington received a special mention for one of his photos in the portrait/feature category.
*Worth mentioning is the fact that the three top positions in the Journalist of the Year category were from the CTP Middelburg stable. Daleen Naudé and Gerhard Rheeder of Middelburg Observer were the other two finalists. Together with Jana Boshoff, also from the Observer and Samantha Traill from WITBANK NEWS, the two sister newspapers had five finalist in the top 10 positions.
