British broadcasters win conflict reporting awards

BAYEUX, France, Oct 7 (Reuters) Two British broadcasters, the BBC and ITV, won prizes for best television and radio reporting from conflicts at international journalism awards in France today.

A jury of journalists at the Prix Bayeux-Calvados awards gave the radio prize to Alex Last of the BBC for a report on Nigerian rebels who had taken oil workers hostage.

It awarded ITV News correspondent Neil Connery the television prize for a report on an official policy of evicting masses of poor Zimbabweans and razing their homes.

A story on life in Iraq won the print prize for Jon Stephenson of New Zealand's Metro magazine.

The top award for news photographs went to Jaafar Ashtiyeh of Agence France-Presse for a series of pictures of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The awards were launched in 1994 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the landing of allied troops on Normandy beaches.

The city of Bayeux and the journalist group Reporters Without Borders today inaugurated a memorial to about 2,000 journalists killed on assignment since 1944.

REUTERS DKB KN2243