Hopewell Chin'ono
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hopewell Chin'ono | |
|---|---|
.jpg) in 2021 | |
| Born | 26 March |
| Education | City Universitty, Brunel & Harvard |
| Occupation | Journalist |
Hopewell Rugoho-Chin'ono is a Zimbabwean journalist. He has won numerous awards in journalism and has worked in both print and broadcasting journalism. He was a fellow at Harvard.[1] He is a documentary film maker. He was the ITV News Africa Field Producer from 2008 to 2015 and New York Times Zimbabwe foreign correspondent from 2015 to 2017.
Hopewell trained as a journalist at the Zimbabwean Institute of Mass Communications before getting his first post graduate Master of Arts degree in International Journalist from City University's Journalism school in London, England. After graduating from City University, he was a freelance radio producer and in 2003 he returned to Zimbabwe to work as a freelance correspondent for the BBC. The Zimbabwean government refused to give him a practicing license because of his link to the BBC.[citation needed]
He won a British Government Chevening scholarship in 2006 to read film at Brunel University, where he obtained a Master of Arts degree in Documentary Practice in 2007.[2]
He returned to Zimbabwe in 2007 and made a documentary film called Pain in My Heart which won the 2008 CNN African Journalist of the year award,[3] 2008 Archbishop Desmond Tutu Leadership Award and the Kaiser Family Foundation Award for Excellence in HIV/AIDS Reporting in Africa.
After making Pain in My Heart he set up Television International in Zimbabwe, a production house that produced news for ITN and South Africa's e.tv. He has also worked with CNN International as a field producer on special assignments and produced for Sky News, BBC Newsnight and Ireland's RTE.[citation needed]
In 2008 he went to the University of Oxford's Saïd Business School where he was awarded The Tutu Fellowship in African Leadership. Hopewell is a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, the third Zimbabwean journalist to have win the Fellowship in journalism in 2009. In 2009 he was the winner of the US Aid Communication award in Zimbabwe for his HIV and Aids Reporting. In 2010 he was nominated for a Rory Peck television award for his documentary film A Violent Response.[4] A Violent Response was nominated for a 2010 BANFF World Television Award in Canada.[5]
Chin'ono was the television producer for UK's ITV News and the Zimbabwe Foreign Correspondent for The New York Times. He worked as South Africa's eNCA foreign correspondent and producer in Zimbabwe from February 2008 to April 2014. He temporarily left journalism to return to documentary film making. He directed State of Mind, a film looking at Zimbabwe's mental illness epidemic.[citation needed]
In 2020, Hopewell reported on alleged COVID-19 procurement fraud within the health ministry, which led to the arrest and sacking of Health Minister Obadiah Moyo. President Emmerson Mnangagwa fired Obadiah Moyo in July 2020 for "inappropriate conduct" over the $60 million medicines supply scandal.[citation needed]
On July 20, 2020, Hopewell was arrested and charged with inciting public violence. The US embassy called Hopewell's arrest "deeply concerning", while his lawyer called it "an abduction" and Amnesty accused Zimbabwean authorities of "misusing the criminal justice system to persecute journalists and activists".[4][5][6][7]
He was freed in September on bail, then he was arrested again in November 2020 and was charged with obstructing justice and contempt of court for a tweet about the court outcome of a gold smuggling scandal involving the President's niece.[8]
Hopewell Chin'ono was released on bail on January 27, 2021, after spending three weeks in prison. Chin'ono expressed concern about the COVID-19 pandemic in the overcrowded Chikurubi Prison and accuses the government of harassment for arresting him three times in five months.[9]
In 2022 he won the United Nations International Anti-Corruption award which came with a US$250,000 prize.
In 2024 he was honored in having a chapter written about his work in a book called Moral Courage published in Canada. The biggest Canadian newspaper, the Globe and Mail acknowledged his work in Toronto, Canada in November 2024.