Journalist of the Year Award 2024
The presentation of One Young World's annual Journalist of the Year Award including the Lyra McKee Award for Bravery
Speakers
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Plestia Alaqad
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Shaneel LalColumnist at the New Zealand Herald and Queer Rights ActivistShaneel Lal
Columnist at the New Zealand Herald and Queer Rights Activist
Shaneel Lal, of Indian and native Fijian descent, is a queer rights activist based in New Zealand. Lal successfully led the movement to ban gay and gender conversion therapy in New Zealand. Lal authored the bestselling book One of Them sharing their story of surviving conversion therapy in a conservative village in Fiji. Lal is involved in the movement to protect religious minorities, queer people and women from hate speech that incites violence and is working on changing blood donation policies to allow more gay men to be eligible to safely donate blood. Outside this, Lal has been advocating for an end to commercial greyhound racing. Lal has written for multiple New Zealand news media platforms including The New Zealand Herald, The Guardian and Stuff NZ with a focus on investigating and providing commentary on issues affecting indigenous peoples, young people and queer people. Lal strongly believes that journalism is necessary for a healthy democracy, and holds power to enact justice. Lal is a recent graduate of the University of Auckland Law School and is studying for a Master of Laws on treaty jurisprudence and indigenous rights. Lal has an interest in reforming youth justice systems, especially to ensure young people are rehabilitated and supported in society and do not become trapped in a lifetime of offending. In 2023, Lal became the first openly queer person to win an award from the New Zealander of the Year awards.
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César DezfuliJournalist and Documentary PhotographerCésar Dezfuli
Journalist and Documentary Photographer
Cesar Dezfuli (b. 1991) is a Spanish-Iranian journalist and documentary photographer whose work focuses on migration, human rights and international affairs. In 2016 he began working on his most renowned project named "Passengers", with which he aims to question the historical visual representation of migration. This project, which has already been exhibited in more than thirty countries and published in numerous international media, follows the story of 118 people rescued from a boat adrift in the Mediterranean, on their migratory route to Europe. Dezfuli, who has been accompanying and documenting their lives for the past eight years, advocates for the individualization of migration narratives and a more empathetic approaches that deconstruct stereotypes. He is currently working on the production of a documentary film on the project that will be released in the coming years, while focusing on the divulgation on migration matters, with numerous talks and workshops in journalism and human rights forums, such as the European Fundamental Rights Forum of Vienna in 2024, or the Athens iMEdD International Journalism Forum 2023. Dezfuli is a frequent contributor to Le Monde and De Volkskrant newspapers, while his work has been published in various international media such as The Guardian, TIME Magazine, Al Jazeera or the BBC. He has received several recognitions such as the World Press Photo award (2023), the European Press Prize (2023), the Catchlight Fellowship (2020) or the Pictures of the Year International prize (2018), among others. His work has been exhibited worldwide individually or as part of collective exhibitions at venues as the National Portrait Gallery (UK); the Museum of Sydney (AU); the European Center for the Arts (DE); the Kyotographie Festival (JP); or the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts (USA).
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John Simpson CBEWorld Affairs Editor, BBCJohn Simpson CBE
World Affairs Editor, BBC
John Simpson, the BBC’s World Affairs Editor, is a household
name and the most distinguished foreign correspondent of the
age. Recognised as the “David Attenborough” of news, John is a
multi-award winning, veteran news broadcaster (and accomplished
author) who has covered almost every major event of the world
from the 1960s to the present day.
His seminal reports on the Big moments of recent history make up an illustrious list to include the Iranian Revolution, the First and Second Gulf Wars, the Fall of the Soviet Union and the Berlin Wall, the end of Apartheid in South Africa, the Genocide in Rwanda, the wars in the former Yugoslavia and the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing.
John’s stories of war and revolution are many and varied: he walked into Taliban-occupied Kabul at the head of the BBC news team in 2001, having previously infiltrated Afghanistan dressed in a burka. He accompanied the Ayatollah Khomeini on his plane from Paris to Tehran to depose the Shah of Iran, he danced on top of the Berlin Wall in 1989; he watched at close range the missiles raining down on Baghdad in the First Gulf War.John was made a CBE for his reporting in 1991. He has won numerous awards, such as three Baftas, the International Emmy and Peabody in the U.S., the RTS Journalist of the Year, twice, – to name but a few.
Twelve universities have awarded him honorary doctorates, St.
Andrews, Nottingham, Southampton, Exeter and Leeds, to name some.
He was also made a Freeman of the City of London. He is an Honorary Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge.