A nurse turned journalism graduate has been recognised for her cross-cultural reporting, winning the Storyboard Award and Spasifik Prize for diversity journalism by a graduating student.
Corazon Miller, of part-Filipino descent, was presented the award by Spasifik magazine editor and publisher Innes Logan at the AUT School of Communication Studies annual awards last night.
Created to recognise an outstanding contribution to diversity reporting, the award has been won in previous years by graduates who have gone on to have successful careers in media.
Past recipients include Qiane Corfield-Matata, now deputy editor of Spasifik magazine, Vaimoana Tapaleao, now a reporter at the New Zealand Herald and winner of Junior Reporter of the Year at the 2010 Qantas Media Awards, and John Pulu, now a reporter for TVNZ's Tagata Pasifika.
“It’s a privilege to win. It’s been quite a surprise, I didn’t expect to get an award,” says Miller.
With a portfolio of stories covering issues from poverty in the Philippines, to health and disabilities in the Pacific, to the education of Afghani children, Miller is an advocate for telling the stories of people from all walks of life around the world.
“It’s important to show people that diversity is important. We’ve got to recognise that everyone’s got an equal stand in society”, says Miller.
Diversity magazine
Sponsorship by Spasifik magazine is fitting, according to editor and publisher Innes Logan.
“Diversity is one of the reasons I launched Spasifik way back in 2004,” he says.
“I was keen to use my experience in mainstream [media] to put together a publication that gives a bit more insight in terms of where we are as Pacific, and Māori, people”.
Logan said diversity was important in media, and was slowly but increasingly on the agenda for politicians as well.
“When you look at a lot of the initiatives which the present government, and even the previous Labour government, are using to try and tackle problems or issues, I think they are acknowledging that you can’t treat ethnic groups as all the same."
“Of course we are all Kiwis, but when it comes to some of the issues surrounding the Pacific, and Māori as well, there are certain ways that you must go about it. This is why diversity is important”, says Logan.
Miller is the first non-Pacific or Māori recipient of the Storyboard Award. The trophy, a carved storyboard from the East Sepik province in Papua New Guinea, was donated by Pacific Media Centre director Dr David Robie in 2006.
Miller is also the recipient of an international internship facilitated by AUT and the Asia New Zealand Foundation, at the Jakarta Globe in Indonesia to be undertaken mid-year.
Pacific Media Centre
