Minelle Fernandez wins UN Journalism Award

Minelle Fernandez has won international recognition with a Media Award from the United Nations.

Fernandez, the Colombo Correspondent for International News Channel - Aljazeera, won an award for Broadcast Journalism from the United Nations Correspondents Association (UNCA).

She collected her medal from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki- moon at a Gala award ceremony in New York last week.

Two of Minelle’s news stories, on UN engagement in Sri Lanka after the end of the war were selected for the Bronze medal of the Ricardo Ortega Broadcast Journalism prize at the annual UNCA Awards 2010.

The Al Arabia news channel won the gold, while Japan’s NHK carried away the Silver in the same category.

Other prizes included the Elizabeth Nuffer prize for written journalism and the UN Foundation award for entries in any medium.

John Pendergast was honoured by the UNCA as its Global Citizen of 2010 while Oscar winning actress Mira Sorvino was given the Global Advocat award.

This is the second UNCA award for Minelle — in 2000 she won the Silver medal for a story on Landmines — the Human cost while she worked at Maharaja Television.

Fernandez has worked in the media for 17 years after entering the field as a radio newscaster. Her experience includes work as a radio newscaster, TV reporter, producer, anchor, documentary producer, online journalist as well as a PR and media strategist.

Minelle began her career at Yes FM radio and moved to television with sister station Maharaja Television. She has worked for a number of international media organisations including Singapore TV, BBC, the Washington Post and Aljazeera International.