A young woman from Porirua who cut her journalistic teeth on work experience at a local newspaper has won the TVNZ Journalism Diversity Scholarship, which is run annually in conjunction with AUT University’s School of Communication Studies.
Nilam Patel was a student at Aotea College when she took part in the school’s Gateway programme which introduces students to a variety of working environments.
Her once a week shift at the local paper, Kapi Mana News, and enjoyment of Year 11 media studies, sparked a strong interest in journalism.
“We had to keep a scrapbook of news events and I loved it because I could watch the news every day and research what was happening around the world. I felt really on to it," Nilam says.
Nilam graduated from Aotea College last year with an award for Academic Excellence in Media Studies, and is now in her first year of a Bachelor of Communication Studies degree majoring in journalism at AUT in Auckland.
The TVNZ Scholarship, which is valued at more than $30,000, is open to New Zealanders who are of Māori, Pacific Island or Asian ethnicity and meet strong community and media criteria. All fees are paid for during the three year degree, and paid holiday work is offered at TVNZ.
The TVNZ head of news and current affairs, Anthony Flannery, says the scholarship is designed to broaden the scope of the stories that are told and the faces we see on screen, and to better reflect the perspective of all New Zealanders in the news. - Television New Zealand/Pacific Media Watch
Pacific Media Watch
