Michela Wrong wins coveted journalism prize

Michela Wrong, former correspondent and specialist writer on Africa, has won the James Cameron Memorial Award for 2010.

Half-Italian, half-British, Wrong was posted by Reuters to Italy, France and the Ivory Coast. She was Africa correspondent for the Financial Times and in recent years has freelanced. The most recent of her three books about Africa is It's Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistle-Blower.

Receiving the award at London's City University on Wednesday, Wrong said that when she started in journalism in the 1980s it had been her ambition to have the same sort of career as Cameron, one of the greatest foreign news journalists of his generation, who died in 1985. Such a career was impossible now because of cutbacks in the coverage of foreign news coverage and the increasing parochialism of British society.

She condemned the plight of freelance journalists covering international issues. Many talented freelance journalists writing about international matters were being forced to leave the profession because of lack of commissions, she said.

“We are reaching a stage where outside contributors to newspapers will all be academics on university salaries, authors promoting their books or the independently wealthy.

“I do think the crisis is temporary and that where there is genuine skill and professionalism market forces will come to the fore. I am an optimist and I can’t wait for this painful adjustment to be over and for things that are currently being offered for free to acquire their true market value.”

The James Cameron memorial lecture was given by Leonard Downie Jr., former executive editor of The Washington Post, who spoke about the revolution in the media brought about by the Internet.

Among several Reuters colleagues with Wrong at the event were Dominique Jackson and Fiona Leney, who were graduate trainees with her in the 1980s. Several former journalists who teach at City, including Colin Bickler, Paul Bolding, Anne McKane and John Rogers, were also there.

Michela Wrong ■