Three graduates from the Department of Media and Journalism have won the first positions in the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) 2020 Award for humanitarian journalism. Yahya Al Yacoubi ranked first on his report “Between Siege and Coronavirus, the pillars of the society are getting old in their twenties”, while Fadi Al-Hosni ranked second on his report ” Coronavirus has engorged the time leaving crashes on youths’ nails”; the third position is recorded for the graduate Nabil Sonoono on his report ” Mental Battles between quarantined youths and Corona, for whom the triumph will be?”
The idea of the competition required to introduce a press report explaining how current conditions, such as the pandemic and pre-pandemic restrictions in the West Bank or Gaza are affecting the mental health of young people. The assessment of the reports was mainly based on measuring the uniqueness and excellence of their content, as well as assessing the strength of narrative and style, while respecting the ethics of journalism and adhering to the principles of humanitarian affairs’ reporting and transparency.
About 40 participants from Palestinian male and female journalists proposed for the competition. The jury evaluated the participations based on a criteria set previously. The evaluation and arbitration committee consisted of the Deputy of the ICRC’s Regional Media Centre Prof. Zainab Ghosn, in addition to the journalist Mohammed Dragma from the West Bank, and the journalist Fathi Sabah from the Gaza Strip. The value of the first, second and third award of the competition is (700, 500, 300, respectively).
It’s worth noting that the graduate Yahya Al Yacoubi won the 2020 Press House Award for Media Freedom in the category of feature story. was nominated to the final list of the 2019 Samir Kassir International Award in Lebanon, in which 230 Arab journalists participated in. Yacoubi also won the “Wa’ed” Palestinian Prisoners’ Press Award 2019, and won the 2019 International Committee of the Red Cross Humanitarian Journalism Award. In addition, he ranked second in the Security Coalition’s 2019 Award for Best Investigations. Moreover, he was nominated for the 17th Dubai Arab Press Award.
