Torera Idowu scoops the top prize with her first ever mobile journalism story
The winner and runners up of our mobile journalism competition may have differing levels of professional experience, but they all share a passion for mojo.
Our winner, Torera Idowu, is a young journalist from Nigeria. Her entry is the first mobile journalism piece she has ever produced, so she is understandably thrilled to have scooped the top prize.
The Thomson Foundation mobile journalism competition, in partnership with RTÉ Mojocon Ireland, has been a great opportunity for Torera to combine her interest in the issues affecting her world with her interest in storytelling.
“This competition led me on a life-defining journey to the slums of Makoko in Lagos, Nigeria,” she says. “Armed with nothing but an old iPad 3, I captured the lives of a few children in this community and their fight for education. I have never filmed anything before but I was led here by the Thomson Foundation mobile journalism competition and it’s been an eye-opening experience.”
Runners up
Torera wins a prize valued in excess of €3,000, which includes a complete mojo kit, return flights to Dublin, five-star accommodation and a pair of VIP two-day combi tickets to the MojoCon conference later this month.
Runners up of our competition are Osman Kaytazoglu from Turkey, formerly a news producer and reporter for Al Jazeera Turk/English and Brais Romero Suárez, a film editor based in Spain.
Our winner, Torera Idowu, is a young journalist from Nigeria. Her entry is the first mobile journalism piece she has ever produced
I have never filmed anything before but I was led here by the Thomson Foundation mobile journalism competition and it's been an eye-opening experience.
The judging process
From all of the entries received for the mobile journalism competition, the judges individually scored each entry based on the following criteria:
- Journalism: Originality and credibility of the story, demonstrating original research and effort and use of interviews
- Impact: Importance of the subject matter and the impact the story has achieved
- Uniqueness to medium: Innovative and appropriate use of mobile recording techniques
- Storytelling: Clarity of the storytelling
- Technical quality: Technical quality of the production
The two entries with the highest scores were selected as runners up. To choose the winner, the judges also took into account the context, the experience of the participant, and the potential displayed. On this basis, the judges unanimously agreed that Torera Idowu was the winner of the competition because of the impact of her story and the potential she had displayed as a mobile video journalist while working well outside her comfort zone.
The judges would like to thank all the participants and commend them for their efforts and the quality of their work, and wish them great success in the future.
MojoCon 2015
Interviews with speakers at the MojoCon conference on 27 and 28 March, 2015, will be posted on the Mojocon YouTube channel and each of the sessions will also be live tweeted using #mojocon.
