On the occasion of the 76th anniversary of the establishment of the Association of Journalists of Macedonia, today were awarded the AJM Annual Journalism Awards.
In his welcoming address, the President of AJM Mladen Chadikovski said that this year there was a large number of applicants for the AJM awards, the largest so far. “That is why the Commission was faced with a great challenge while selecting the winners. Four colleagues were awarded and I really believe that after long thorough observation and discussion for the applications, the right choice was made. I congratulate all the winners, and I would like to thank all the participants in the competition and congratulate them for their stories,” said Chadikovski.
This year, the “Krste Petkov Misirkov” Award for lifetime achievement was given to the journalist Jadranka Kostova, a long-time, renowned journalist, editor of “Fokus”. Aleksandar Chomovski, as chairperson of the Commission for selection of awards for 2021 for Kostova, said that throughout her career, she has been guided by the premise that criticism should be directed at the government, i.e., those who have power, and the government corrupts them. “Jadranka is one of the top journalists and editorial names in the Macedonian media, and by promoting democratic values and nurturing and respecting journalistic standards, she marked the media space in her own original creative way,” said Chomovski.
In her address to the audience, Kostova said, “This award I feel as a double award, to be in the service of the public interest and to be a controller of every government. In my career, it was especially important for me to have a good team and good editorial staff, so success is inevitable,” said Kostova.
The “Jashar Erebara” award for annual investigative journalism in a competition of 27 applications was given to the journalist from the digital platform SDK.mk Sonja Kolevska Delevska for the series of texts which chronologically record the serious human rights violations of a 19-year-old boy entitled “The graduate Toni Sali died after a 15-year battle, failing to win the battle with the state to obtain personal identification documents.” In her address, the colleague Delevska thanked the editorial office of SDK.mk for the support, but also for the developed feeling to recognize such stories and to give them an advantage. “Human rights topics have become our recognizable brand, we will continue in that direction, especially to address people’s problems. We would all be very happy if the now-deceased graduate Toni Sali was standing here with us, and we congratulated him on the obtained ID number and personal documents. The editorial office of SDK.mk will fight never to repeat such cases of grave violation of citizens’ rights, and no more to have such stories “, said Delevska
Out of 11 applications for the award for journalistic reporting on topics of local and regional importance, the Commission for selection of annual awards decided to award this award to journalists Ubavka Janevska and Daniela Sazdova for the research story “Residents of Rechani complain about pollution. PE “Macedonia Road claims that it does not pollute them” from the media Duma.mk. It is a real research story that is a media research-based media article that is also a multi-layered article. Colleague Janevska publicly thanked for the efforts of AJM through this award to support and encourage media workers from the rest of the country to report on important topics of local importance.
At the public competition this year, within the stipulated deadline, 43 applications for awards were submitted for all three categories, and members of the Commission for selection of awards were journalists Aleksandar Chomovski as president and as members Slobodanka Jovanovska and Senad Zulbeari. The Association of Journalists of Macedonia expresses great gratitude to all interested journalists for this year’s competition.
