Zainab Bala is the team lead and editor of The Scoop Storytelling Initiative, a non-profit journalism platform dedicated to expanding underrepresented voices in Nigeria. She covers gender, climate, community affairs and other topics, with a focus on West Africa.
Philip Obaji Jr. is one of the foremost journalist reporting for international audiences on massacres, rape, torture and other abuses at the hands of Russian paramilitaries in Central and West Africa. Obaji, who is the winner of the 2025 ICFJ Knight International Journalism Award, delivered the following remarks on Nov. 13 at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, DC, at the ICFJ Awards Dinner 2025.
The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) today announced its 2025 Knight Award winners – two journalists who have demonstrated exceptional courage and perseverance in exposing wrongdoing in environments that are incredibly hostile to the press.
The awardees are: César Batiz, an investigative journalist in exile who is the co-founder and director of the pioneering El Pitazo in Venezuela; and Philip Obaji Jr., a Nigerian journalist who has documented Russian atrocities in Central and West Africa as a correspondent for The Daily Beast.
Nigerian journalist Ojoma Akor has received a variety of awards and fellowships throughout her career. Through an ICFJ program, she produced important work, including the first cross-border story in her portfolio. She credits the fellowship for deepening her understanding of malnutrition on the health beat.
Each week as part of the Knight International Media Innovators blog, the ICFJ Knight team will round up stories focused on how their fellows are making an impact in the field.
Find out more about the fellows' projects by clicking here.
The headline of the Weekly Trust cover story on Saturday, July 30th was scathing: “Abuja mothers-to-be cry out… ‘We go through hell in hospitals.’” Produced under the guiding eye of Knight International Journalism Fellow Sunday Dare, the story highlighted a critical shortage of hospital staff that prompted many expectant mothers
