Palestinian journalist Malak A Tantesh told Press Gazette she feels “proud” to have told stories about “the reality we were living in Gaza” after winning the Marie Colvin Award at the British Journalism Awards.
She went on to further win the New Journalist of the Year award later that evening.
Tantesh reported from the ground in Gaza for The Guardian for 18 months and is now studying journalism in the UK.
After hearing her name announced as the winner of the Marie Colvin Award, Tantesh said she was “in shock”. Hundreds of journalists gave Tantesh a standing ovation as she took to the stage at London’s Hilton Bankside on 11 December.
[Read more: Marie Colvin ‘would have been honoured to meet’ award winner Malak Tantesh]
“When I came to the stage and when I saw all the people were standing for me I was happy – it was a very mixed feeling. I felt very happy, nervous, sad – I don’t know how to describe it…
“I start looking and start thinking ‘oh my god, what am I doing here?’”
She said that four months ago she “was in Gaza surrounded by no colours, and suddenly like I am here – seeing people, seeing colours, seeing everything…I am safe, but at the same time I am thinking of my family, honestly.
“I can’t feel completely happy. Sometimes I feel like there is happiness [lacking]. You feel like your body is healed but your soul is still there [in Gaza].”
Tantesh added she is adjusting to environmental differences in London after reporting from Gaza where she saw only “grey, the rubble, and the sun”.
“There weren’t buildings of colours, not even the trees… so this is like actually a big shock when I came here, especially [in] the first week.”
Tantesh added that seeing planes and helicopters in the sky in London used to make her afraid after her experience in Gaza, “then I realised I am in London now, I am safe”.
The Marie Colvin Award is given to an outstanding up-and-coming journalist of the calibre of the Sunday Times correspondent who was killed in Syria in 2012.
Tantesh’s award-winning stories for The Guardian included a survivor recounting Gaza paramedic killings, a journey to uncover the remains of a pre-war life, and a piece on skeletal children filling up hospital wards.
‘Now I know I have made a change’
“For me, this award is important because now I know that I have made a change,” she said, adding that people “now know more about what is happening in Gaza”.
“I feel like I [succeeded in] delivering the messages, delivering the reality we were living in Gaza, I just can’t describe it. I feel proud…It is important for the families that I wrote the stories about them.
“I delivered your messages, your voices, all these people inside there heard about your stories and now they are just standing and clapping. It is so important for them. The message was delivered.”
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Tantesh added that the most challenging part of her reporting was hearing stories from survivors.
“When I was hearing the story, I was living inside them… I wanted to deliver the feelings, like a little bit of the feelings that they felt when this happened to them, when they lost this amount of [family] members,” she said.
Tantesh added that when writing the stories, she takes “strength” from the interviewees, and sometimes starts crying.
“I was seeing that they are still fighting to rebuild their lives. They are still fighting to do everything…So, it was so difficult,” she said. “The most difficult thing in the interview was [asking] the question, ‘what was the feeling when you lost this person?’
“They start looking to you with an empty look. You feel like they… start thinking again [about] what they lost in that moment.”
Tantesh added that while there are “still many moments” that remain with her from her reporting experience, she recalls one interview in particular: a man who survived a house bombing that killed 32 others.
“Not one single injured person got out of this house. All of them were killed. So, when I was looking into his eyes, I felt like he was lost. I felt like I was feeling his feelings. So this moment is still standing inside of me.
“Sometimes… I feel like no one is caring of our world. I start telling myself like, ‘I don’t just know like why I am doing this. No one is hearing, no one is listening’.
“But my father and my family start [telling] me, ‘Malak we are doing this not for you, we are doing it for Gaza, for the people, for the truth’.”
Tantesh also worked with her sister, Enas Tantesh, who acted as her photographer. Their cousin Seham is now reporting for The Guardian herself.
The British Journalism Awards judges said Tantesh “embodies everything they think of as being in Marie’s spirit: bravery, empathy with her subjects, fighting against the odds to get the story”.
They said her reports for The Guardian “provided vital coverage of a war most journalists were banned from witnessing and that she “faced deprivation, the constant risk of bombs and the threat of targeted attack”.
“More than 200 journalists were killed covering the war in Gaza. Thankfully this year’s Marie Colvin Award winner survived and is with us here tonight,” awards host Jeremy Vine said.
It is the second year in a row the Marie Colvin Award has been won by Palestinian journalists.
Last year Yousef Hammash of Channel 4 News, who is now based in the UK, and Feras Al Ajrami of BBC Eye Investigations were recognised with the award.
The post ‘Now I know I have made a change’: Interview with Marie Colvin Award winner Malak A Tantesh appeared first on Press Gazette.
