Time to Tell the Truth: Moscow Awards Best Foreign Journalists and Bloggers, by Kestér Kenn Klomegâh

On December 3rd, Moscow prepares to hold its ground-breaking International Honest View Award for foreign journalists and bloggers in a planned ceremony. The 2024 award has collected a record number of applications for all three years of its existence – 488 competition materials from 59 countries, including Argentina, Germany, Israel, India, Iran, Canada, China, Norway, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Turkey, 19 African countries and all CIS countries.

The goal of the Honest View Award is to identify the best materials from foreign media and authors who cover humanitarian, cultural and economic initiatives of the Russian Federation abroad, as well as joint global, interregional and intercountry projects with Russia. According to the organizers, the world is in demand for objective information about Russia, its international activities and projects abroad.

The competition for foreign media is annually held in order to identify, popularize and promote the best journalistic experience in covering the humanitarian activities of the Russian Federation abroad. The surge in the applications, as compared to the previous years, demonstrated a growing interest for reporting on Russia especially in the context of changing geopolitical situation.

And this is not the limit: based on the dynamics of growing interest to the contest in the previous two years, the Organizing Committee has expanded the geography to all the continents – especially since the contest was receiving attention from international associations that unite journalists from different regions and strive to maintain high standards of the profession.

It is also aimed at inspiring and motivating foreign journalists to join the movement for multipolar change and make a departure away from criticisms to promoting Russia’s image abroad. The works of foreign journalists and bloggers were evaluated by the members of an Expert Council and the Media Award Jury.

The most popular nomination was “Best Material on International Cultural Partnership with Russia” – 159 applications were received. 132 authors are competing for the victory in the nomination “Best Material on Social and Humanitarian Topics” and 103 materials have been submitted in the nomination for the “Best Material in the Genre of Journalism and Documentary” after the deadline on 25th September 2024, according to reports.

One of the innovations of the award in 2024 is the nomination for young journalists aged 18-25, and it has found its audience: more than 15% of the applications received for the competition were submitted by applicants under 25. This year’s innovation – the nomination “Best Material by Young Journalists about the Russian Federation” – attracted 54 young and aspiring journalists aged 18-25 to the competition. The most talented and active participants will be invited to Moscow in early December to attend the Media School, which includes lectures, master classes and trainings by Russian and foreign experts on international issues, global challenges, mastering modern journalism formats and mass communication technologies in the context of covering international humanitarian projects.

Another innovation of this year included the special nomination for the author of the material covering cooperation within EAEU, BRICS and other international projects and initiatives. The winner in this category was selected by the Competition Jury together with one of the Award’s partners. The final results of the award will be announced at the award ceremony for the winners and laureates on 3rd December 2024 in Moscow.

Reference: The Honest View Media Award is being held for the third year and has already become a platform for uniting journalists and bloggers from all over the world. In 2022, 118 journalists from 28 countries participated in the award. Participants from Uzbekistan, Montenegro, Tajikistan, Belarus and Iran became the winners of the competition. In 2023, the geography of the award expanded, and the number of participants doubled: 250 works from 51 countries were received.

In 2024, journalists and bloggers from 59 countries submitted applications for the competition, including Abkhazia, Azerbaijan, Argentina, Armenia, Bangladesh, Belarus, Benin, Burkina Faso, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Germany, Greece, Egypt, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Israel, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Cameroon, Canada, Kyrgyzstan, China, Congo, Costa Rica, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mali, Morocco, Moldova, Mongolia, Norway, Paraguay, Peru, Romania, Senegal, Serbia, Syria, Slovakia, Tajikistan, Thailand, Togo, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Turkey, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Finland, CAR, Chad, Montenegro, Ecuador, Ethiopia, South Africa, South Ossetia.

The organizer of the award and media school is the Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States, Compatriots Living Abroad, and International Humanitarian Cooperation (Rossotrudnichestvo). The operator of the competition and media school is the AGT Communications Agency, one of the leaders in the communications industry of Russia and the CIS countries.