The Online News Association (ONA) announced on September 15, 2022, that Manori Wijesekera of Global Press is the winner of the 2022 ONA Community Award. Global Press has been a Channel grantee partner since 2010.
The ONA Community Award honors a person or small team in online journalism that has made outsize contributions to the field, particularly those who create tools or work environments that allow digital journalists to do their best work. These achievements are sometimes overshadowed by recognition given to individual projects and stories. This award is an opportunity to lift up those behind-the-scenes colleagues who have had an extraordinary impact on the field of journalism and the public at large.
Wijesekera is currently the training manager at Global Press and based in Sri Lanka. After working as a newspaper and magazine journalist for local publications and as a program manager at an educational media company, Wijesekera joined Global Press in 2009 as a reporter in its Sri Lanka bureau. As the training manager of Global Press Institute, the training arm of Global Press, Wijesekera oversees the professional development of women journalists across all Global Press bureaus. During the pandemic, she deftly pivoted to virtual learning and was the leading force behind the creation of GPI Online, a robust learning platform with original curricula in six languages.
A video announcing Wijesekera as the ONA Community Award winner and her acceptance remarks can be found here.
In the video, Cristi Hegranes, Global Press CEO & Publisher, shares, “I have had the great privilege of working with Manori for the last 13 years watching as she advances standards and practices across our industry by equipping local women journalists from Mexico to Mongolia with the tools and training they need to truly disrupt global narratives.”
