Loving a Little Local at the Village NEWS! Elaine Davie – A voice for the voiceless

Loving a Little Local at the Village NEWS! Elaine Davie – A voice for the voiceless

Writer Hedda Mittner

The Forum of Community Journalists (FCJ) Excellence Awards, held annually in July – and among the many events that were derailed last year by Covid-19 – was finally presented online on Friday to honour the shining stars of South Africa’s community press for 2019.

Having won the coveted Newspaper of the Year award in the independent commercial newspaper category for 2017, The Village NEWS was the runner-up for the second year in a row, and in the Columnist category, Murray Stewart was the runner-up for the third time. The Village NEWS also won third place in the Front Page category, while Taylum Meyer was a finalist for General Photography, a category in which she placed second the year before.

This was good news indeed for the whole team after a year of hard knocks, but there was even more reason to rejoice when it was announced that our journalist Elaine Davie was the winner of both Hard News and the most coveted award of all – Journalist of the Year for 2019.

When selecting the recipient of this sought-after accolade, the FCJ judges were looking for qualities such as versatility, the eloquent use of language, and a wide variety of interesting topics. They found exactly that, and more, in the stories submitted by Elaine, who has been a valuable contributor to The Village NEWS for just over three years, keeping our readers entertained and informed on everything happening in the Overstrand, from community issues to education, the environment, books and the arts.

The judges made particular mention of Elaine’s striking reports on abalone poaching, commenting that her articles “all show initiative and the ability to stick with a story until the end, answering important questions, all highly relevant to the community”. As someone who says she’s “adopted causes all my life”, one of Elaine’s strengths is her dedication to bringing issues affecting our communities into the open, while taking great care to present all sides of a story. She feels strongly about giving a voice to the voiceless and presenting the perspective of the disenfranchised – which goes back to her years as a radio journalist during the apartheid years.

Above all, Elaine’s stories are about people. It therefore came as no surprise to us when she won the Human Interest category at the FCJ Excellence Awards for 2018. “When I do an interview, one of my main aims is to get below the surface and capture the essence of the person I am speaking to without their feeling I am invading their privacy,” she says. “I truly believe that everyone has a story to tell that needs to be heard, even if they don’t necessarily think so themselves.”

Click on the newspaper below to read more (see page 3).