'Intrepid Traveller' Wins First RNZI Prize

'Intrepid Traveller' Wins First RNZI Asia-Pacific Journalism Prize

http://www.pmc.aut.ac.nz/pmc-blog/2011-03-24/intrepid-traveller-wins-first-rnzi-asia-pacific-journalism-prize

AUCKLAND (Pacific Media Centre/Pacific Media Watch): A young graduate who topped the Asia-Pacific Journalism course at AUT University has won the inaugural Radio New Zealand International prize for regional reporting.

The RNZI prize, an all expenses paid internship for a week in the radio station’s Wellington newsroom, was presented by manager Linden Clark at last night's annual communication studies awards.

“We are delighted to be supporting Asia-Pacific journalism at AUT with this new award,” Clark said.

Kim Bowden recently graduated as a journalist with AUT’s Postgraduate Diploma in Communication Studies to add to her political studies and geography degree.

The move into journalism had been a change in career path for Bowden. She had previously worked for six years with adventure tour company Intrepid Travel in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Fiji, Vanuatu and New Zealand.

She also had a year-long stint as an electoral secretary.

Bowden, who filed frequent Asia-Pacific stories to PMC Online and Pacific Scoop over the past year also won the Kunda Dixit prize for international journalism – a book from the Nepali Times publisher's photojournalism trilogy on the decade-long Maoist civil war in Nepal.

She won the APN National Publishing Award as the "outstanding graduate" among postgraduate student journalists.

Pacific Media Centre director Dr David Robie praised Bowden for her "commitment, dedication and maturity" for her portfolio of Asia-Pacific stories.

Bowden is also one of three recipients of the 2011 Pacific Media Centre international internships, sponsored by the Asia New Zealand Foundation. She will be attached to China Daily.com in Beijing for three months.

ENDS

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