Winners announced for new nib Health Scholarship at Canon Media Awards
The nib Health Journalism Scholarship was introduced to this year’s Canon Media Awards and winners of the junior and
senior scholarships were announced last Friday at Te Papa, Wellington.
Winners of each category were awarded a $5,000 grant to meet the costs of conducting a healthrelated research project to
be published in some form of New Zealand media.
The Spinoff reporter Jessica McAllen took out the junior category while Donna Chisholm, journalist for North & South and The New Zealand Listener, won the senior award.
nib CEO, Rob Hennin says their reason for introducing this award was two-pronged.
“We wanted to recognise the excellence in health related journalism but also wanted to provide journalists working in
the health sector with the opportunity to broaden their perspective within the health industry.”
Winners were selected based on their heath related published work and chosen area of research which was submitted as
part of their application.
Ms McAllen’s interest in exploring the subject of Maori suicide impressed the judges as it was a very topical issue they
found had real potential it its exploration.
“It is an ongoing tragedy that has resisted the attempts of conventional health messaging campaigns.
We thought the scholarship would be of value to her research in travelling the country to find some much needed
answers,” said the judges.
Ms Chisholm won the judges’ praise for her proposed research area on Pharmac and pharmaceutical companies’ unaffordable
medicines as they saw it as an area that required further investigation and drew a great deal of pubic interest.
“This stood out as a subject significantly aligned to New Zealand currently. This scholarship will see her travel to
some of the world’s largest drug companies and investigate these high costs that are affecting so many New Zealanders”
said the judges.
The panel comprised of Kate Coughlan, former Fairfax Magazines editor, now publisher and editor of NZ Life & Leisure; Tim Murphy, former NZ Herald editor-in-chief, and Paul Thompson, former Fairfax group executive editor, now
CEO of RNZ.
ENDS