Ethnic Media Award

More than 300 entries were submitted for the 2009 National Ethnic Media Awards for Outstanding Print, Web and Broadcast Reporting in 17 categories ranging from in-depth/investigative reporting to blogging. The only Zoroastrian to earn recognition at the New America Media (NAM)’s National Ethnic Media Expo and Awards on June 4 at the Atlanta Hyatt Regency Hotel was Sunita Sohrabji who is a reporter for India-West, a weekly magazine published in California.

Sunita Sohrabji: runner-up scribe

Sohrabji earned the runner-up position in two categories: Health Care — for her story titled "Postpartum Depression: South Asian Women Suffer in Silence;” and Environmental Issue — for her article "Green Rules Force Small Truckers into the Red.” This news item was first brought to our attention by Maneck Bhujwala. Subsequent search on the web revealed that judges from universities, mainstream media and community-based organizations selected the winners from a wide range of ethnic media outlets — from Polish newspapers in New York to Hmong journals in Minneapolis to Spanish language television in Los Angeles. "These have been difficult times for journalists and their media companies,” commented Sandip Roy, coordinator of the awards, whilst Sandy Close, NAM’s executive director referred to a poll documenting that the ethnic media has been growing in comparison to the mainstream media that has been struggling to keep readers.

Sohrabji’s article on postpartum depression wherein she analyzes the isolation and difficulties faced by immigrant mothers far from their families in India also won the third prize in the Specialty Story category (non-daily newspapers) at the San Francisco Peninsula Press Club’s 32nd Greater Bay Area Journalism Awards on June 6 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. A note from the India-West editor mentions that Sohrabji received a fellowship from the California Health Endowment and NAM to research postpartum depression and its prevalence among women in the South Asian community.