Zeenat Moorad wins 2014 Citi Journalistic Excellence Award
The 2014 Citi Journalistic Excellence Awards has been won by Business Day senior retail and consumer markets correspondent Zeenat Moorad.
Her winning article, entitled ‘Check Mate’ beat out 14 other entries from around the country to win the top prize. The article was published in the 27 June – 2 July edition of the business weekly magazine Financial Mail.
In it, Moorad unpacks a drawn out campaign by Woolworths to buy Australian retail chain Country Road and the efforts by retail Magnate Solomon Lew to block the deal.
‘The Citi Journalistic Awards is a wonderful platform for the financial journalists in South Africa to experience a once in a lifetime opportunity to attend a seminar at arguably one of the most prominent Journalism schools in the world,’ said Citi country officer for South Africa Dennis Evans. ‘It provides them with a unique opportunity to meet some of the most esteemed players in the financial industry including a meeting at the Federal Reserve.
‘Previous winners have claimed that one of the strongest parts of the trip was creating a network of people during their stay and whom they could still call upon when writing stories on their return. I am sure Zeenat will do South Africa proud amongst the international journalists and I hope she extracts the most from the trip,’ Evans said.
In June, she will join business and financial journalists from around the world in New York City at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, where they will have an opportunity to meet and speak with global leaders in the fields of finance, business, journalism and government.
Moorad’s passion for writing and news began in high school where she was on the editorial committee of our school paper. ‘Every last Friday of the month, we poured our literary prowess onto a double-sided A4 sheet which was photocopied and distributed to the masses during first break,’ she said. ‘As unsophisticated as the delivery was, I’m still left with the experience of how fulfilling it was to impart meaningful information, and to spark the debate that naturally ensued. This to me is the essence of journalism.’
Having started her career as a journalist writing for financial news wire service I-Net Bridge in 2008, she went on to join Business Day in 2012 and is now covering the retail and consumer markets; a role which extends to sister publications such as Financial Mail, Investors Monthly and Wanted Magazine.
She plans to move into an editing role at one of these publications within the next two years, after which she will embark on an MBA at INSEAD. One of her goals is to write and photograph a coffee table book on South Africa’s dynamic taxi industry.