Judges for the Sandford St Martin 2022 Awards
Sandford St Martin judges represent some of the best of the UK’s broadcasting and journalism industries. Chosen to represent a broad range of experience, perspectives and backgrounds as well as attitudes to faith, what they have in common is their skill, professionalism and commitment to excellence in broadcasting.
Bernard P Achampong
Journalism Judge
Bernard P Achampong is an eight-time British Radio Academy award-winning audio producer, with many years of experience working for BBC, Spotify, ITN Productions and as a freelance producer.
In 2015, he was nominated for the BBC World Service documentary HRH The Prince of Wales: Building Bridges but he’s probably best recognised for his 10-part exposé on the Dark Web for Audible UK.
In 2011, Bernard formed the digital development company Unedited and launched Unedited Stories podcast network in 2017.
Genelle Aldred
Journalism Judge
Genelle Aldred is a journalist, broadcaster, writer and public speaker. Her career has included work for ITN, ITV and the BBC as well as prominent roles as Head of Digital Strategy for Tearfund, Channel Manager of TBNUK and Communications Director for The Pipeline.
She now heads the Genelle Aldred Consultancy which delivers coaching, media and presentation training, and works with businesses to design and develop effective communications strategies. A passionate advocate for diversity and inclusion, Genelle’s book “Communication for Change: Creating Justice in a World of Bias” was published by SPCK last autumn.
Genelle is the Deputy Chair of Women in Journalism, an Ambassador for Sands, the stillbirth and neonatal death charity and regularly contributes to Sky News, the BBC and international news stations as a commentator and reviewer.
Anna Bassi
Young Audience Judge
Anna Bassi is Editorial Director of the multi-award-winning weekly children’s news magazine, The Week Junior and its sister title, Science+Nature. With a career spanning more than 25 years she has an in-depth understanding of what young readers engage with, and a commitment to providing brilliant, perfectly-pitched, trusted and age-appropriate content that helps children make sense of the world, and find their place in it. In December 2018 Anna was presented with the Editors’ Editor Award by the British Society of Magazine Editors.
Jackie Edwards
Chair of the Young Audience judging panel
Jackie Edwards is Head of the BFI Young Audiences Content Fund, and is responsible for the successful implementation of this game changing UK Government initiative to stimulate the provision of public service content for audiences of 0-18. Jackie joined the BFI from BBC Children’s where she had been the Head of Acquisitions and Independent Animation, responsible for pre-buying and acquiring live-action and animated programming for CBeebies, CBBC and iPlayer. She joined the BBC in 2008 as Content Manager and Executive Producer. Prior to the BBC Jackie was an award winning producer in the Independent Sector. A passionate advocate for public service content, Jackie is currently living her dream job!
Peter Hanington
Radio/Audio Judge
Peter Hanington has worked as a journalist for over twenty-five years, most recently at The World Tonight and Newshour on the BBC World Service. Before that he worked for BBC Radio 4’s Today programme where he initiated the special guest editor programmes and worked on special projects. He is the author of a series of political thrillers featuring radio journalist William Carver including ‘A Dying Breed‘ ( a Sunday Times ‘Thriller of the Month’) and most recently ‘A Cursed Place‘.
Suyin Haynes
TV/Video Judge
Suyin Haynes is Editor-in-Chief at gal-dem, an award-winning media company committed to sharing the perspectives of people of colour from marginalised genders. Previously a Senior Reporter for TIME magazine based in London covering gender, culture and underrepresented communities, and prior to that was based in TIME’s Hong Kong bureau as an audience engagement editor. Her work for TIME has included reporting on the #MeToo movement in South Korea and China, cultural commentary on the representation of women in popular film, and a cover story on Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, for which she travelled with Thunberg by train from London to Stockholm. Suyin is Malaysian-British and was born and raised in London, and graduated from the London School of Economics in International Relations and History in 2016.
Keith Kahn-Harris
TV/Video Judge
Dr Keith Kahn-Harris is a sociologist and writer, based in London. He is a senior lecturer at Leo Baeck College, an associate lecturer and honorary fellow at Birkbeck College, and he is the project director of the European Jewish Research Archive at the Institute for Jewish Policy Research. He has a broad range of interests, including particular expertise in researching metal music scenes and the UK Jewish community. The author of seven books, editor of several collections and many articles and reviews, his career bridges academia and multiple other worlds. His work has appeared in publications including The Guardian, New Humanist, Prospect, Haaretz, The Forward, New Statesman and more. His most recent book is The Babel Message: A Love Letter to Language (Icon). His next book What Does A Jew Look Like? (co-authored with Rob Stothard) has just been published by Five Leaves Books.
Jayne Kirkham
Young Audience Judge
Jayne Kirkham is a writer for children (including original stories for Toniebox, and series such as CBeebies’ Treasure Champs and Bing). She is a member of the Children’s Media Foundation Board and on their behalf volunteers as Clerk to the All Party Parliamentary Group for Children’s Media and the Arts.
Catrin Nye
Journalism Judge
Catrin Nye is an award-winning investigative journalist, documentary maker and presenter. She currently works for the BBC’s Original Journalism Unit as a senior reporter specialising in long form news and current affairs as well as digital storytelling. Catrin also presents for BBC Panorama and has her own radio programme on BBC Radio Wales called The Idea.
Catrin previously spent many years reporting for Newsnight and BBC Asian Network developing a specialism in Britain’s minority communities, an area she continues to report on today. She was host of The Hour on BBC One Wales – a political debate show putting ordinary people at the heart of political debate.
Catrin recently won a BAFTA Cymru for her BBC Panorama documentary about Universal Credit, she has also won the Mind Journalist of the Year award, two Sandford St Martin Awards and was one of the Radio Academy’s 30 Under 30. She has also been shortlisted for RTS Young Journalist of the Year and an Amnesty Award among others.
Johny Pitts
Chair of the Radio/Audio judging panel
Johny Pitts is the curator of the ENAR (European Network Against Racism), the award-winning online journal Afropean.com and the author of the multi-award winning book Afropean: Notes from Black Europe.
He is the co-presenter of BBC Radio 4’s ‘Open Book’ and has presented for MTV, the BBC and ITV1. Other broadcasting work includes a Radio 4 documentary exploring Black identity through the music of his father who was a member of the Northern Soul group The Fantastics, and a forthcoming Afropean podcast funded by a grant from the National Geographic Society.
Johny has contributed words and images for The Guardian, The New Statesman, The New York Times, and Condé Nast Traveller. His debut photographic exhibition Afropean:Travels in Black Europe was at Foam in Amsterdam in 2020 and he is the recipient of the inaugural Ampersand/Photoworks Fellowship (2021/2022).
Fatima Salaria
Chair of the TV/Video judging panel
Fatima Salaria is the Managing Director of Naked Television, whose programming slate stretches the gamut from hit entertainment franchises including The Apprentice and The Rap Game UK; enduring popular features and factual entertainment series Grand Designs and Escape to the Country; to high-end factual and specialist factual programmes including 60 Days on the Streets, Ghislaine, Prince Andrew and the Paedophile, and Planet Sex fronted by Cara Delevingne.
Before that she was Head of Specialist Factual, at Channel 4 where she supervised hit series My Grandparents War and Putin: A Russian Spy Story, greenlit timely specials including Ramadan in Lockdown and Race Against The Virus, and shaped the Channel’s response to the killing of George Floyd with the Take Your Knee Off My Neck series of shorts. Prior that, Fatima was Commissioning Editor for Religion and Ethics at the BBC.
Fatima is also the Executive Chair of the Edinburgh TV Festival, a member of the Bafta and Grierson TV Committee. She is a Mentor for Screenskills, Wonder Woman and Breakthrough leaders for Fremantle.
Sarah Sands
Chair of the Journalism Judging Panel
Sarah Sands is a leading journalist and author and former editor of Radio 4’s flagship news and current affairs programme, Today. She was previously editor of the London Evening Standard, the first woman to edit The Sunday Telegraph and deputy editor of The Daily Telegraph.
Sands was Chair of the Gender Equality Advisory Council for G7 for 2021, she is currently Chair of the political think tank Bright Blue and Board Director at Hawthorn Advisors. She is also a Board Member of Channel 4, London First and Index on Censorship and is a Patron of the National Citizen Service.
Sarah is an honorary fellow of Goldsmiths College, University of London, Lucy Cavendish College Cambridge and a visiting fellow to the Reuters Institute.
Diyora Shadijanova
Radio/Audio Judge
Born in Uzbekistan and living in the UK since she was 10 years old, Diyora Shadijanova is a multimedia journalist and freelance writer. As the current Opinions and First Person editor at gal-dem – a publication committed to telling the stories of people of colour from marginalised genders – she writes and edits personal essays on mental health and belonging, provides vivid political analysis and is on the pulse of captivating culture stories. She has appeared on radio as well as television to debate contemporary issues and her work has been featured in publications such as VICE, Refinery29, Bustle, The Independent, Cosmopolitan, DAZED and i-D. Shadijanova was recently the host of a bi-weekly podcast called Broccoli Book Club – all about reading books that are good for you.
Mona Siddiqui
Radio/Audio Judge
Mona Siddiqui, is Professor of Islamic and Interreligious Studies and Assistant Principal for Religion and Society at the University of Edinburgh. Her research lies in the field of Islamic law and ethics and Christian-Muslim relations. Amongst her most recent publications are Human Struggle: Christian and Muslim Perspectives, (CUP 2021), based on her 2016 Gifford lectures. Since October 2021, she holds a distinguished Visiting Professorship at Hartford International University. In September 2022, she will be the Jane and Aatos Erkko Visiting Professor in Studies on Contemporary Society at the Helsinki Collegium of Advanced Studies.
She is known internationally as a public intellectual and is a regular commentator in the media, known for her appearances on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio Scotland’s Thought for the Day and The Moral Maze. In 2012, she appeared as a guest on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and an elected honorary member and first speaker of the Royal Scottish Academy. In 2011, she was awarded an OBE for her interreligious work.
David Strachan
TV/Video Judge
David Strachan is a multi-award winning TV Producer and Strategist who also sits on the board of Creative Scotland. As Founding Managing Director of Tern Television until 2018, David saw the company grow from staff of four to more than fifty in Aberdeen, Glasgow and Belfast. For 19 years he was Scottish representative on the board of the producers trade association. He served for a term on the board of Scottish Screen and has long been an active advocate for increased production from the Nations. He is an honorary professor in the film and media studies department of the University of Stirling.
Ewan Vinnicombe-Wallis
Children’s Judge
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Shortlisters
In addition to our judges, we are hugely indebted to our 2022 shortlisters, all of whom lent us their time, energy, enthusiasm and their expertise to the category they were asked to work on. Our thanks to:
Ngunan Adamu, Bridget Cass, Kate Cornell, Rosie Dawson, Torin Douglas, Shivani Khandekar, Hannah Ludlow, John Matheson, Nana-Adwoa Mbeutcha, Anna McNamee, Nicola Meyrick, Nathan Newman, Reem Nouss, Harry Parker, Mark Perrow, Pete Rawlings, Angela Robson, Paresh Solanki, Bryony Taylor and Chris Wilson.
