Two journalists, Clément Di Roma and Carol Valade, have been awarded the 2022 Daphne Caruana Galizia Prize for their documentary “The Central African Republic under Russian influence”
This documentary is a Découpages/Arte G.E.I.E co-production, initially broadcast on Arte Reportage in French, German and English. It was also broadcast on France 24 and published in the French newspaper Le Monde.
Roberta Metsola, President of the European Parliament, Pina Picierno, Vice-President responsible for the Prize, and Anthony Bellanger, Secretary General of the International Federation of Journalists and representative of the 29 members of the independent European-wide Jury, opened the award ceremony held in the Daphne Caruana Galizia Press Room of the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
President Metsola said: “The Daphne Caruana Galizia Prize for Journalism sends a strong message. The European Parliament is on the side of truth and justice, of independent journalism.
A strong democracy needs a strong press. And there is no democracy without freedom of the press. In Europe, rights and liberties are goals we fight for, not obstacles.”
Between the 3rd May and 1st August 2022, more than 200 journalists from the 27 EU countries submitted their stories for consideration. 11 of these submissions were shortlisted by the jury before the overall winner was decided.
Clément Di Roma and Carol Valade were presented with the award by the winners of the 2021 edition, Sandrine Rigaud and Laurent Richard, representatives of the Pegasus Project, coordinated by Forbidden Stories.
About the winners
Clément Di Roma is a video and photojournalist correspondent for France24 based in Rwanda. He started in 2019 as a reporter in Senegal for Agence France Presse. From 2020 till 2022 he was based in the Central African Republic as correspondent for the channels France24 and TV5Monde. From Bangui, he covered the electoral crisis and the armed attacks of a rebel coalition against the capital Bangui. A year later, he directed with Carol Valade the winning story “the Central African Republic under Russian influence / Centrafrique : le soft power russe”.
Carol Valade has been a multi-media reporter specialising in Africa for 10 years. In 2018, he moved to the continent as a press correspondent and collaborated with RFI, AFP, TV5-Monde, Radio France and Le Monde among other international media. He traveled throughout West Africa to cover the political crisis in Guinea, the resurgence of the Ebola epidemic, investigated the massacres of the 28th September 2009, documented the adaptation to climate change and the disappearance of elephants before settling in the Central African Republic to report on the consequences of the civil war and the Russian influence that is the subject of the winning story.
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