KUCHING: There was excitement in the air for Sarawak’s media fraternity at the 32nd edition of the Awards (KJA) ceremony held at Imperial Hotel here on Friday night.
Journalists keenly awaited the announcement of the prizes towards the end of the night, curious to know what awards they had bagged.
Present at the ceremony was Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg, accompanied by other guests of honour — Local Government and Housing Minister Datuk Seri Dr Sim Kui Hian; Assistant Minister in the Chief Minister’s Department (Corporate Affairs and Sarawak Public Communications Unit) Abdullah Saidol; and others.
Although the ceremony was held with standard operating procedures (SOPs) in place to curb the spread of Covid-19, it was nevertheless a vibrant one filled with entertainment from local singers.
During his speech, Abang Johari encouraged the continued collaboration between the media fraternity and the government to drive the state’s development.
“The state government will continue to improve ourselves and the journalists must also give a fair view on what we have done.
“That should be the way we interact between journalists and the government — they have to go together. From Sarawak’s part, we have benefitted from the collaboration,” he said.
This year’s KJA witnessed a total of 540 entries submitted to various categories, which resulted in an increase of 220 entries or 40.7 percent compared to last year’s entries.
The categories for this year’s awards were the Chief Minister’s Award, Journalism Award (Feature and News Feature), News Reporting Award, Sports Reporting Award, Sustainability Journalism Award, Business and Economic Journalism Award, Community Wellbeing and Rural Development Journalism Award, and the Digital Economy Journalism Award.
The categories were further divided into the Bahasa Melayu, English, Chinese and Iban sub-categories.
As for broadcast media and photography, the categories were the Broadcast Journalism Award, Photo Journalism Award, and Photography Essay Award.
The same event also witnessed the chief minister presenting the Sarawak Media Figure Award 2020 to James Alexander Ritchie — a columnist and former executive director of New Sarawak Tribune.
Alvester Bigol Sulang of Suara Sarawak 
Barina Nani of Suara Sarawak 
Christina Lian of Suara Sarawak 
Indun Silong of Suara Sarawak 
Isabella Nisa Inchang of Suara Sarawak 
Lina Kunjak of Suara Sarawak 
Lydia Aman of Suara Sarawak. 
Nick Fletcher Neha of Suara Sarawak won gold in Bahasa Malaysia category
