PNA Announces Winners Of Tuna Media Competitionff

The Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) announced Daniel Namosuaia of the Solomon Star newspaper as the winner of the Communicating Tuna Media Competition.

Robert Matau from Islands Business magazine was announced as runner up.

The winner will be provided with fully funded travel to Manila, Philippines in December 2012 to report on the annual meeting of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Tuna Commission to the Pacific region. The runner up will be awarded a plaque.

PNA Director Dr Transform Aqorau said: “PNA conducted this competition because it wants to reward high quality reporting on tuna. The media have an important role to play in upholding the values of the PNA such as sustainable management of tuna by government, good policy decisions that increase economic benefits to Islanders from tuna, and responsible industry working with the PNA for mutual benefit.”

“We are delighted to announce Daniel Namosuaia as the 2012 winner of the PNA Communicating Tuna Media Competition. While I was impressed with all the participants in this workshop, Daniel was the most prolific and innovative. A young and keen reporter, he produced over 30 reports on tuna in just six weeks. He displayed great initiative, interviewing government and industry representatives and finding new angles on current issues of importance to his country. We are pleased to announce him as winner of the competition and wish him well in his career as an investigative journalist.”

“We are also pleased to recognize Robert Matau as runner up of PNA Communicating Tuna Media Competition. Robert is a senior writer, well known for his political reporting, and the selection of stories he entered in the competition on regional and international tuna politics was exceptional. We are pleased to announce him as the runner up winner of the competition as a recognition of the value of investigative reporting on tuna at the regional level in Islands Business magazine.”

Independent Judge Sean Dorney one of ABC's (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) most experienced and respected correspondents who has been reporting from the Pacific for over three decades, said Daniel Namosuaia deserved to be awarded the winner based on the quality, quantity, originality and relevance of his stories on tuna. In providing his judgement he said: “Daniel deserves to win this award for the comprehensive nature of his work and for truly communicating to the Solomon Star readership the vital importance of the tuna fishery to the country and also to the whole Pacific region.”

He added that runner up Robert Matau did not follow the media pack but added an different perspective to reporting: “Islands Business plays a most important role in providing comprehensive reports and analysis for its Pacific Islands readership. Robert is doing a fine job keeping readers up to date on the whole Pacific tuna story.”