Unnamed Myanmar photographer wins Bayeux war Correspondents' award

The New York Times has awarded the prestigious “Bayeux Calvados-Normandy Award “ for War Correspondents to an unnamed Burmese photojournalist on Sunday.

A variety of worldwide journalists together with several veteran reporters and an unnamed Myanmar photographer were awarded the Bayeux Calvados-Normandy Award in France.

Manoocher Deghati, chairman of the selection panel, told AFP that the first prize was awarded to a Burmese photographer who documented Burma’s anti-coup movement in what is being dubbed the “Spring Revolution” at an awards ceremony in the northern French city of Bavaria on Saturday.

Deghati, a Frenchman of Iranian descent who fled Iran in 1985, said the selection panel decided to award the award because it wanted to highlight the struggles of emerging photojournalists in Burma.

The award-winning Burmese photojournalist and the work of many other Burmese photographers are also on display at the Bayu exhibition.

Protestors urging police to join the people as thousands gathered to demonstrate in support of the National League for Democracy and against the coup, in Yangon, Myanmar. Photo via Bayeux

The first prize for print news went to Wolfgang Bauer, who wrote about the Taliban in the Zeit Magazin. This is his second award, and he won it in 2016 with Nigerian news.

Two Bosnians, Damir Sagolj and Danis Tanovic, who filmed Al Jazeera for Al Jazeera about the plight of thousands of refugees in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina, won the TV and Video Awards, as well as the Radio Reporter Award.

The first small town in Byzantium, France, which gained independence in 1944, has been offering awards to those who risked their lives to cover the war.

A panel of 40 French and British journalists will be awarded between Euro 3,000 to Euro 7,000 each.

“It is exceptional to bring together forty professionals here in Bayeux. The debates are incredibly rich. For us, war reporters, who never have time to talk to each other when we are in the field, this moment is an opportunity to discuss, judge, and look at our work and our colleagues’. These reports are the result of our experiences and the best of the profession,” Manoocher Deghati said in a press statement.