BBC wins at media awards
The BBC’s The Story of the Jews was the big winner at the annual religious broadcasting awards this week.
Picking up two accolades at the Sandford St Martin Awards on Tuesday, episode four of the fivepart series, Over the Rainbow, took a personal look at 3,000 years of Jewish history.
Oxford Film and Television for BBC Two made the film, with Simon Schama as presenter, winning both the Television Award and the Radio Times Readers Award.
The Radio Award went to BBC Scotland Feature’s I Have A Dream, heard on BBC Radio 4.
The programme brought together well-known personalities to read portions of the famous speech by Martin Luther King, including the late Maya Angelous, Doreen Lawrence and His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
The Trust’s new award for Local, Community and Online programming went to Sounds Jewish: The Jewish Revival in Poland, a podcast produced by JW3: Jewish Community Centre for London and broadcast by guardian.com.
The story follows Denise Grollmus as she travels to Poland to search out her ancestral roots.
Broadcaster Melvyn Bragg received the Personal Award. Roger Bolton, trustee of the Sandford St Martin Trust, said he was being recognised for ‘putting religion at the heart of human experience and exploring it in such a way that it has enriched public discourse for decades’.
The Rt Rev Nick Baines, Bishop-elect of Leeds and Chair of the Sandford St Martin Trust, said: “This year’s entrants were a true reflection of the quality and depth of religious broadcasting in this country.
“While they all sought to illuminate, educate and entertain us, they also stretched our understanding - vital in the complex modern world. More such broadcasting can only make us stronger as a society.”