Naga journalist wins Fetisov Journalism Awards

Our Reporter

Dimapur, May 5 (EMN): A Naga journalist, Manno Wangnao, from Tizit in Mon district won the “Fetisov Journalism Awards 2020” in the category “Contribution to civil rights” for her work on “Migrants from another world,” a collaborative report with other journalists. Wangnao was said to have won the award with fellow journalist Ushinor Majumdar from India.

The Fetisov Journalism Awards 2020 received over 280 entries from 77 countries.

Wangnao, a freelance journalist, started her career with the APN news channel based in New Delhi for over a year after which she took time off to continue her post graduate in journalism. After completing her PG course, she worked for the Times Now for seven months and with the Confluence media until the lockdown. Now a freelance journalist, Wangnao worked for a period of four months for the award winning story on the "Migrants from another world".

Speaking to Eastern Mirror, Wangnao informed that during the course of working on her report, she learnt that the “migrants aim was to go to the United States of America and that none was bothered about reaching there illegally or earning illegally; it was all a well organised machinery which displayed the failure of the government while everyone wants to live a comfortable life.”

"It is the same with our Naga parents who want their children to have a stable government job" Wangnao pointed out.

A curious person with good grades since she was a child, her parents expected her to join the government job. Wangnao said that as a curious person and bored of monotonous jobs, she wanted to take up a job which she could give justice to.

On winning the award, Wangnao commented that she expected a byline internationally for her work but not the award.

She said that her parents and community understand journalism simply by watching television but were ignorant of the various fields in journalism. She said, "You choose journalism for passion and not for money". Although her parents do not understand the concept of her profession they were not against what does.

Wangnao is against the idea of how achievement of work is highlighted by the community especially in the state.

While pointing out that women who do real work are not highlighted, she bemoaned that "winners of beauty pageant’ are given prominence.

Wangnao is currently working with the tea board of Assam to encourage organic farming and create awareness that chemical farming is not the answer for farming.