Kampala put on quite a show when the 2010 CNN Multichoice African Journalist of the Year came to town on Saturday May 29.

This was despite the inconvenience that comes with President Yoweri Museveni gracing an event — body searches, airport-like X-ray scanning of personal effects and a near-ban on personal cameras.
With scenic icons like the huge huts at the Kasubi Tombs no more, most of the visiting finalists and other journalists earlier made do with a nature walk at Mabira Forest.

Back at the Kampala Serena Hotel’s Victoria Hall, M7 — that’s the jocular reference His Excellency goes by in some sections of the Fourth Estate — was in his element. He was the chief guest at the ceremony; the gold standard in African journalism over the past 15 years.

He appealed to media houses to remunerate their journalists better, to loud applause. Some nominees, like Morocco’s Najlae Benmbarek, winner of the Francophone Electronic Media General News Award, echoed the same appeal during her acceptance speech.

Trust Museveni to take attention away from the impending tough legislation aimed at cowing the media.
For the most part, CNN Inside Africa host Isha Seesay and leading Ugandan emcee Mitch Egwang kept the momentum going.

At the far end of the hall, nervous nominees hoped that they would be the ones clutching the gold-rimmed map-of-Africa glass trophies.

Those that had their names inscribed on the envelopes did the routine hugging of family friends before walking up to the podium to accept their trophies and deliver words of gratitude.

If there was any doubt about the awards being an extension of Tinsel Town glitz and glamour, the stories by the nominees, drawn from over 2000 entries, dispelled it. There, too, was an affirmation that the Western media does not have a stranglehold on Africa’s news agenda.

None of the stories glossed over the fact that poverty, ignorance and disease no longer existed. Instead, they highlight triumph over adversity, showing how Africa’s billion-strong population is resiliently soldiering on.
Granny’s Bank, the winner of the Economics and Business Award (by NTV Kenya’s Kaari Wainaina and Francis Mugo Mwangi) is an excellent example.

It take us into the lives of female senior citizens in rural Kenya who ignore modern banking and tailor-make a scheme in which they can access loans to better their lot.

Stories like Malawi radio journalist Teresa Chirwa’s Medical doctor risks lives of HIV positive people by putting them on illegal cancer trial (winner of the MSD Health and Medical Award) highlighted the dark side to global medical research.

The Print General News Award winning entry by Emmanuel Mayah of Daily Sun, Nigeria’s, Tears of African Migrants was a truly investigative piece.

Mayah follows a group of 40 migrants, starting from Lagos, Nigeria to Libya, across seven countries.
Environment Award winner, The East African’s Halima Abdallah’s Cry the faithful crane, was an indictment of Uganda’s lip service to environmental conservation.

Degradation of the national bird’s habitat is seeing the crested crane heading for extinction.

The gala was not about bleak evocative entries. Ghana’s entry, The Seriousness of Soup, winner of the Arts & Culture Award, was a rib-cracking account of the place and importance of soup in Ghanaian culture.

Sport Award winner Leon Senyange of NTV Uganda, whose Punching in the Dark is about a poor blind boxer, had gems of wisdom.

The future of journalism in this digital age got a ringing endorsement in the winning Digital Journalism Award entry.

In this, the Dispatch Online Team on behalf of The Daily Dispatch in South Africa, breathed new life into investigative journalism, exposing predatory slumlords and slum dwellings in King Williams Town, South Africa.

It employed creative tools from the Internet that enable the viewer to tour the slum house.

South Africa’s Sam Rogers, executive producer of Factuals — Crime and Investigation Unit, e.tv — won the ultimate prize for her story Curse of the Nobody People.

It was just as well that an “outsider” offered a penetrating insight into the discrimination against albinos in Tanzania.

With an earlier award in the Television Features category, Ms Rogers received a substantive cash prize, a laptop computer printer, modem and a trip to the CNN Centre, Atlanta.