OW Spotlight Katerina Vittozzi

Apsley

Video Journalist & Foreign Correspondent

WHAT WOULD YOU SAY TO YOUR 18-YEAR OLD SELF LEAVING WELLINGTON?

Add a language to whatever you are studying - it opens up so many opportunities to travel, work and meet different people and experience different cultures. Also, don’t worry - hair straighteners will soon be available.

INSIGHTFUL READ

Fountainhead

by Ayn Rand There are different readings of this book but I like to think it's about the importance of standing up for what you believe in, however unfashionable and difficult that might be. Stick is the man, I say.

Katerina Vittozzi is an award-winning freelance video journalist and foreign correspondent.

Since 2013, Katerina has been based in Accra, Ghana. From there, she travels extensively across the continent and has covered some of Africa’s biggest news stories.

Katerina’s coverage of West Africa’s Ebola epidemic was dubbed ‘a masterclass in storytelling’ by judges in 2015’s One World Media Awards. She won their “New Voice – Young Journalist of the Year” prize. Katerina was also awarded the British government’s Ebola Medal for Service in West Africa, in recognition of her extensive media coverage of the outbreak.

Katerina’s video and radio work has been broadcast on the BBC, France 24, Deutsche Welle and RFI, amongst others. She is a graduate in English literature from St. Anne’s College, University of Oxford and a Fellow of the International Women’s Media Foundation.

You can follow her work on @kvittozzi, https://www.facebook.com/kvittozzi/ and at www.vnfilms.co.uk

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

When I was 15 I did work experience at a local newspaper. The editor there told me, “If you can’t write it, get it written.” It’s stuck with me ever since, especially when deadlines are looming!

What is the most memorable moment you have covered in your career to date?

I was in Liberia when the first cases of Ebola were reported and I remember the first piece I did on the outbreak, which at that point had only killed 2 people in Liberia. The virus would go on to kill nearly 5,000 in Liberia alone, but for many months it was hugely under-reported. I spent a lot of time covering the outbreak, from all 3 worst-affected countries, and was in Liberia and Sierra Leone when both countries were declared Ebola-free. It’s rare you get to cover an entire story-arch like that. I met some incredible people who were risking their lives to help others in a whole range of ways and I was happy, and humbled, to get to tell their stories.

If you could cover any period in history, when would it have been and why?

Such a difficult question! There are so many! Plus I think now is one of the most exciting time to work in foreign news. Today’s audience is a lot more aware of how connected the world is and I think there is a real appetite for a whole range of different stories and narratives from all around the globe. Technology and social media have also completely changed foreign news gathering in lots of really positive ways; allowing stories, and voices, from even the most far-flung places to be heard across the world almost in real-time.

Thank you Katerina for an extremely interesting insight into the world of an award-winning journalist.