Mail & Guardian Online reporter

The awards honour women in the South African media industry who have excelled in their careers. Outstanding women were chosen from a host of nominations representing women on the academic, commercial and content sides of the media.

At the event, attended by media professionals from around the country, Haffajee (39) was described as a "thought leader" in her field.

Haffajee told the M&G Online: "This award is also a recognition of a newspaper that has always encouraged strong women journalists. I am thrilled by it and will use it to ensure that more women know they can break through the glass ceiling."

The finalists for the award included Carte Blanche co-anchor Ruda Landman, The Star photographer Neo Ntsoma and freelance journalist Sue Valentine. All were commended for their "exceptional contributions" to the South African media landscape.

Haffajee is the first woman editor of the M&G. Under her editorship, the paper has published a number of key investigative articles and achieved a newsroom staff complement that is two-thirds women.

The Media magazine, the organiser of the event, says Haffajee has "become a powerfully persuasive and authoritative voice on the media".

AM Live and Interface presenter Nikiwe Bikitsha was chosen as a rising star for the "maturity and depth" she displayed at a young age, while media-research veteran Barbara Cooke was honoured as a lifetime achiever.

The awards have seen an increasing number of women entering the media environment and enjoying the recognition of their employers and peers.

"The award is now in its fourth year and there is little doubt that the role of women in the media sector has gained impetus over this time." says The Media founder and publisher Sandra Gordon.

"Every year the selection process has proved challenging and this year was no exception, I want to thank our judges - Prof Govin Reddy, Dr Melanie Chait, Dr Jyoti Mistry, Libby Lloyd (last year's winner), Gordon Muller and Jos Kuper. All of them are proud to be associated with the concept and we are privileged to have their considerable insight and thoughtful deliberation."

Haffajee is also the chairperson of the South African National Editors' Forum. She said she will use her year in office to publicise the findings of the organisation's glass-ceiling report, which found that many women feel they cannot reach senior positions in the media.

The winners

Ferial Haffajee - Winner, MTN Women in the Media Awards 2006

Editor-in-Chief of the Mail & Guardian since 2004 - Ferial's career history epitomises the characteristics of the perfect candidate to lead the vital initiatives and development of the media industry. She is the first woman editor of the leading Mail & Guardian newspaper which has a newsroom comprising of two-thirds women. Under her editorship, the weekly has tackled ground-breaking stories. She has also become a powerfully persuasive and authoritative voice on the media.

Before becoming the Mail & Guardian's fifth editor, Ferial worked at the Financial Mail as senior editor responsible for political reporting and covered the presidency and tripartite alliance. Haffajee, who has worked as media editor, economics writer and associated editor at the Mail & Guardian, also enjoyed a stint at the SABC as radio producer and television reporter. She is also a past winner of the Sanlam financial journalism award.

Ferial is also Board member of Mail &Guardian Publishing and GenderLinks and is a member of Africa Leadership Initiative.

Nikiwe Bikitsha - Winner the MTN Rising Star 2006

Nikiwe Bikitsha (28) is co-hosting one of radio's most influential current affairs shows AM Live and is a presenter on SABC's Interface.

She broke into the broadcast scene when she joined commercial radio station Cape Talk as an intern in 1997. She was one of the first journalists on the scene at the Planet Hollywood bombing in 1998, and covered the incident for international networks such as BBC and CNN.

In 2002, she moved to Johannesburg and joined Talk Radio 702 as a senior journalist. It was during her two-year tenure at the station that she was approached to co-host AM Live with radio veteran John Perlman.

Barbara Cooke - Lifetime Achiever Award 2006

Not many people can launch a new career at retirement age and make a success out of it but media research veteran Barbara Cooke is definitely one of them.

Five years ago, she set up one of the world's leading research companies, Target Group Index (TGI), in South Africa, alongside colleague Tim Bester, under the name: The Brand Survey Company. Today, she and Bester are still as strong as ever in serving the need for a single source media, marketing and advertising planning data base.

Cooke's career as market researcher spans four-and-a-half decades and her many ground-breaking research papers on media issues presented at local and international conferences have earned her the reputation of a leading expert.

Highlights include her becoming the first woman to win the annual South Africa Marketing award - the Protea Award - in 1994, presented by the Association of Marketers.

Cooke is a founding member of the South African Market Research Association (SAMRA) and served on their national executive. She also was vice-chairwoman of the South African Advertising and Research Foundation (Saarf) and served on its board.

The MTN Women in The Media 2006 Finalists:

Ruda Landman

Landman started her career as a newspaper journalist in 1977 and moved onto radio, magazines and television newsreading before being appointed co-anchor of the country's first actuality television programme, Netwerk.

After giving birth to her son, Johannes, in December 1986, Ruda worked as a freelance television reporter before joining Carte Blanche in 1988. Throughout its 8-year history, the show has accumulated more than 80 local and international awards for excellence in television. She is also a director of Media24 and chairwoman of the board of Helpmekaar, the Johannesburg high school her son attends.

Growing up in the Afrikaner landscape of Upington in the Northern Cape and graduating in languages at the University of Stellenbosch, Landman says a life-changing moment for her was covering the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) set up to investigate apartheid atrocities.

Neo Ntsoma

From humble beginnings in Mmabatho (Setswana for "Mother of the People"), a small town some 350 kilometres north of Johannesburg, she has since notched up more than a dozen awards for photographic excellence, including the CNN Africa Journalist of the Year in 2004 (she was the first woman recipient) and a Special Mention in the news category of the Fuji African Press Photo Awards. Her photographs have been published in several international publications such as Washington Post, Time magazine and The London Telegraph.

Ntsoma joined The Star newspaper as a photographer in 2000. Two years later, she travelled to Bangladesh where she was offered a job as a tutor at the Pathshala South Asian Institute of Photography. Ntsoma spent a year there before returning to The Star in 2003.

Neo's pictures are soulful expressions; her personal favourites being the ones she took while visiting Mother Theresa's home in Bangladesh. A photo project, "South African Youth ID - Kwaito Culture", has recently been published in a book called Moving in Time.

Winning more than a dozen other awards for excellence in photography, more recently, Ntsoma won accolades for her striking pictures of a group of exceptionally tough women undergoing extreme training to become members of the elite Special Task Force unit.

Probably her most-used political picture is a photograph of the historically long voter queues snaking around polling stations during the first democratic elections in 1994.

Sue Valentine

Journalist Sue Valentine could be described as a "woman of firsts". She was the first woman sports reporter to work at The Star newspaper in 1987, she was the founder of South Africa's first gay and lesbian radio programme in the mid-1990s, she was among the first journalists to report on Aids activist Zackie Achmat taking anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) in 2003.

Valentine has produced several radio documentaries on Aids, including "Growing Up in a Time of Aids" with children from KwaZulu-Natal and a weekly radio feature called "Living with Aids" which was broadcast on SAfm between September 2000 and August 2002.

Valentine, a former history teacher, started her journalism career as news reader and writer at Capital Radio in 1987 before becoming the first woman sports reporter at The Star in the same year.

She then became education reporter at The Star before moving to the Institute for Democracy in South Africa where she later became media director. In 1996, Valentine founded, produced and presented In the Pink, South Africa's first gay and lesbian radio programme on the Cape community station Bush Radio.

In 1997, she was appointed executive producer of AM Live and Midday Live on SABC. Two years later she became managing editor of Health e-news service and last year moved to the Open Society Foundation for South Africa, a non-governmental organisation, as media director. Since then, she has decided to take the freelance route.

She is a past recipient of a Nieman Fellowship, granted by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, USA.

060728
MG060710

Always watch for outdated information. This article first appeared in 2006. This material is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.

AEGiS presents published material, reprinted with permission and neither endorses nor opposes any material. All information contained on this website, including information relating to health conditions, products, and treatments, is for informational purposes only. It is often presented in summary or aggregate form. It is not meant to be a substitute for the advice provided by your own physician or other medical professionals. Always discuss treatment options with a doctor who specializes in treating HIV.

Copyright ©1980, 2006. AEGiS. All materials appearing on AEGiS are protected by copyright as a collective work or compilation under U.S. copyright and other laws and are the property of AEGiS, or the party credited as the provider of the content. .