Gly will be a co-recipient of the Ricardo Ortega Memorial Prize for broadcast media. Its namesake was formerly the New York correspondent for Antenna 3 TV of Spain, who died while on an assignment in Haiti in 2004.
Gly is a Kurdish journalist from the city of Kirkuk in Iraq. He has previously been Emmy-nominated and has worked as the New York bureau chief for Rudaw Media Network with a primary focus on international affairs at UN Headquarters. Gly has worked at Rudaw for five years.
He holds a master’s degree in international relations and affairs from the City University of New York – Brooklyn College. Sharing in the bronze medal is Liling Tan who works for the Feature Story News & China Global TV Network.
UNCA is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year and its 23rd consecutive year of awarding the best print, broadcast and online media coverage of the United Nations. Representatives from 193 countries will attend the ceremony.
Rudaw Media Network will be represented by Hemin Lihony, the head of the digital portal; Ranj Sangawi, the host of the popular weekly ‘Lagal Ranj’ TV program, and Namo Abdulla, the Washington, D.C. bureau chief.
As media covering the event, Rudaw will host Mark Lowcock, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, and Kairat Umarov, Kazakhstan’s Ambassador to UN who is one of the drivers of the Astana peace talks for resolving the Syrian conflict.
The World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers awarded Rudaw in early 2018 for extending its reach to 100 million in social media in 2017. Rudaw was previously recognized by international media outlets for its coverage of the ISIS conflict as the group threatened to overrun all of Iraq.
Rudaw has continued to grow its portals and graphics with the addition of more staff and journalists, who report the news from the region's many languages. The network provides a Kurdish voice on news across the world with a focus on the Middle East.
It is funded and supported by Rudaw Company. It has been headquartered in Erbil, the capital city of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, since it was established in 2008.
