Winning entry a ‘major contribution’ to journalism

Winning entry a ‘major contribution’ to journalism

Massey University journalism student Ryan Bridge has taken out New Zealand’s top investigative reporting prize for emerging journalists for work described as “a major contribution” to public awareness.

Ryan won the 2010 Bruce Jesson Emerging Journalist Award for critical journalism for a series of stories revealing that New Plymouth MP Jonathan Young failed to disclose a directorship, and for making public damning Porirua rheumatic fever statistics.

The $500 award caps a stellar year for Ryan: earlier announced the winner of the Graduate Diploma in Journalism’s Alex Veysey Prize for journalism excellence, he has since started a career as a reporter and a broadcaster with Radio Live in Auckland.

The prize is sponsored by the Bruce Jesson Foundation, an independent trust established in 1999 by a group of senior New Zealand academics and journalists to commemorate one of New Zealand’s greatest political journalists, the late Bruce Jesson. Its aim is to promote vigorous political, social and economic investigation, debate, analysis and reporting in New Zealand.

The first story, breaking the news that Mr Young had not disclosed his directorship of Seaview Super Trustees Ltd to Parliament’s Registrar of Pecuniary Interests, was published in the Taranaki Daily News; the second, linking confidential medical report descriptions of Porirua as “the rheumatic fever capital of New Zealand” to high local medical fees for children, ran in City Life newspapers.

Foundation chairwoman Professor Jane Kelsey said Ryan had made major contributions to public awareness on both important issues. “New Zealand’s democracy depends on the hard work of journalists such as Ryan Bridge who recognise the issues that matter and pursue them,” she said.

“We believe Ryan has an outstanding future ahead of him.”

Speaking after the awards’ ceremony, Ryan said he was proud to be associated with a prize named after prominent journalist, columnist and political figure, the late Bruce Jesson.

“I had the pleasure of meeting [his wife] Joyce at the awards ceremony. She shared stories with me about him – the journalist, politician, and the husband. By all accounts, it sounds like he was a thoughtful, respectful man who knew what he believed in.”

Ryan praised his Massey journalism lecturers. “I couldn’t have done it without them. The lecturers and support staff were instrumental in guiding me from study to work.”

The prize was judged by a journalism subcommittee of the foundation, comprising journalists and journalism academics. The senior award went to North Shore City Council public transport co-ordinator Chris Harris for work analysing New Zealand’s transport and planning policies.

It is the second year in a row Massey’s journalism programme has scored the prestigious prize. Last year’s winners comprised a student team of Michael Dickison, Amanda Fisher, Motoko Kakubayashi, Rory MacKinnon, Sarah Taane, and Chloe Vaughan, rewarded for a series of articles breaking the news that Masterton residents living on a former gasworks site were unaware the site was contaminated with cancer-causing toxins.

ENDS

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