Baraka FM reporter nominated for African Media Awards over story on extrajudicial killings

A reporter with Coast leading FM station -Baraka FM has been nominated in a prestigious competition-African Media Awards. Josphat Kioko who is the deputy Editor cum senior reporter, has been nominated in the just concluded The African Fact-Checking Awards. The Awards launched in 2014 by Africa Check and AFP Foundation, the non-profit media training arm of AFP news agency, were created to honour the best investigative fact-checking carried out by African journalists each year. Kioko is among seven other journalists from other countries nominated for the top prize, following a minute feature titled “shoot to kill order”. The feature touched on incidences of claims that the Kenya police operate an unofficial “shoot to kill “policy against people they suspect are involved in terrorism. Kioko said he was notified of his nomination from a tweet on his twitter account. The veteran journalist says he was prompted to write the feature following the controversial disappearance and finally murder of Muslim clerics in Mombasa and also the killing of a 14 year old girl namely Kwekwe Mwandaza by the police in 2014, on allegation that she wanted to slash police officers with a machete in Kwale County. “It is an honour to me and journalism at large,” he told the Standard. The police officers were on a mission at the girl’s home in Kwale County to arrest her uncle who was allegedly involved in crime but ended up shooting the girl claiming she attacked them. Kioko has been with Baraka FM for 15 enjoys and his nomination comes only a few days after his colleague George Otieno was also nominated as a finalist in the prestigious CNN Multi choice African Journalist 2015 Awards. Otieno,30 was nominated for this year's awards following a 5 minute health feature story on Obstetric Fistula-a hole formed in the cervix due to prolonged labor, which captured the tribulations of three women who suffered from the condition for years but finally healed after successful free surgery. The winner and runners up for the African Fact Checking Awards will be named at a ceremony at the African Media Leader’s Forum in Johannesburg, South Africa, in November. The winner will take home a cash prize of US$2,248 and the two runners up US$ 1,124.