Piyumi wins top award for investigative journalism

Daily Mirror journalist excels at MASCOM media academy in Kerala

Piyumi is seen receiving her award from the Kerala State Police Chief Dr. T.P. Senkumar at the MASCOM Convocation held last week. 

For courageous investigative reporting and feature writing, Daily Mirror journalist Piyumi Fonseka won a special award at the MASCOM Manorama School of Communication Convocation in Kerala, India last Friday. 

A news and features writer for the newspaper’s print and online editions, Piyumi topped the score sheet in the Investigative Reporting Project Evaluation which included both English and Malayalam streams of the MASCOM Academy. 

Having won the Denzil Peiris Young Journalist Award at the Annual Excellence in Journalism Award Ceremony jointly organised by the Editors’ Guild of Sri Lanka and the Sri Lanka Press Institute, Piyumi also won the Lakshman Kadirgamar Journalism scholarship for 2016/2017. She is the first Sri Lankan to secure the highest score at the MASCOM Academy. 

The Sri Lankan stall prepared by Piyumi at the final exhibition of the academy attracted many visitors and she received rave reviews for her work that displayed much information about Sri Lanka’s history, politics and culture. 

MASCOM Academy is run by the Malayala Manorama Group, India’s biggest multimedia house. 
Colleagues say Piyumi is an inspiration to journalists. She has penned a number of in-depth and investigative reports in addition to her regular news reporting in various fields. While following her studies in India, Piyumi unfolded a number of enlightening tales including the plight of Sri Lankan refugees stranded in India.

 By Susitha R. Fernando