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Al-Dosari Honors Winners of 4th Media Excellence Award

The fourth edition of the Media Excellence Award was held in Riyadh on Sunday. (Bashir Saleh)
The fourth edition of the Media Excellence Award was held in Riyadh on Sunday. (Bashir Saleh)
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Al-Dosari Honors Winners of 4th Media Excellence Award

The fourth edition of the Media Excellence Award was held in Riyadh on Sunday. (Bashir Saleh)
The fourth edition of the Media Excellence Award was held in Riyadh on Sunday. (Bashir Saleh)

Saudi Minister of Information Salman bin Yousef Al-Dosari honored the winners of the fourth edition of the Media Excellence Award, during a ceremony held in Riyadh on Sunday.

Saudi Poet Khalaf bin Hazal was awarded the Special Honor for his patriotic songs and his valuable poetic collection that has been popular in Saudi Arabia for decades.

The Independent Arabia newspaper won the Press Material Award for the piece "Journalism in the Language of Infographics."

Al-Dosari also honored the official spokesman for the Ministry of Health, Dr. Mohammad Al-Abdulaali, who played an important role in spreading awareness, clarifying facts and enhancing public safety during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The award this year saw the qualification of nearly 20 entries, out of 2,355, to the final stage to compete across six media platforms. The participating government agencies exceeded 90, while entries from the private and non-profit sectors totaled more than 65.

The Saudi Press Agency (SPA) won the Photography Award for the photo "A Picture for a Thousand Reports," which showed a member of the Saudi military during the evacuation of people affected by the war in Sudan.

The Ministry of National Guard won the Creative Video Award, while the Saudi Ministry of Interior received the Excellence Award in Government Media for its distinguished media contribution to the security and safety of society.

Riyadh Radio won the Audio Producer Award and the Television Producer Award went to the Saudi Channel for its program titled "Earth."

The ceremony featured a short film about the development media over the past year. It reviewed the programs, activities and achievements that contributed to a qualitative leap in media. The film highlighted the efforts of the Media Forum, the periodic government conference, and the "Treasures" series that sheds light on unique Saudi stories.

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Varieties

Trump Vexes New Zealanders by Claiming One of Their Proudest Historical Moments for America 

British scientists Dr. E.T.S. Walton, left, and Dr. F.D. Cockroft, right, stand with Lord Rutherford outside the Cavendish laboratory in Cambridge, UK, May 2, 1932. (AP)
British scientists Dr. E.T.S. Walton, left, and Dr. F.D. Cockroft, right, stand with Lord Rutherford outside the Cavendish laboratory in Cambridge, UK, May 2, 1932. (AP)
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Trump Vexes New Zealanders by Claiming One of Their Proudest Historical Moments for America 

British scientists Dr. E.T.S. Walton, left, and Dr. F.D. Cockroft, right, stand with Lord Rutherford outside the Cavendish laboratory in Cambridge, UK, May 2, 1932. (AP)
British scientists Dr. E.T.S. Walton, left, and Dr. F.D. Cockroft, right, stand with Lord Rutherford outside the Cavendish laboratory in Cambridge, UK, May 2, 1932. (AP)

Among other false and misleading claims in US President Donald Trump's inauguration addresses on Tuesday, his declaration that Americans “split the atom” prompted vexed social media posts by New Zealanders, who said the achievement belonged to a pioneering scientist revered in his homeland.

Ernest Rutherford, a Nobel Prize winner known as the father of nuclear physics, is regarded by many as the first to knowingly split the atom by artificially inducing a nuclear reaction in 1917 while he worked at a university in Manchester in the United Kingdom.

The achievement is also credited to English scientist John Douglas Cockroft and Ireland's Ernest Walton, researchers in 1932 at a British laboratory developed by Rutherford. It is not attributed to Americans.

Trump’s account of US greatness in one of Monday's inauguration addresses included a claim that Americans “crossed deserts, scaled mountains, braved untold dangers, won the Wild West, ended slavery, rescued millions from tyranny, lifted millions from poverty, harnessed electricity, split the atom, launched mankind into the heavens and put the universe of human knowledge into the palm of the human hand.”

New Zealand politician Nick Smith, the mayor of Nelson, where Rutherford was born and educated, said he was “a bit surprised” by the claim.

“Rutherford’s groundbreaking research on radio communication, radioactivity, the structure of the atom and ultrasound technology were done at Cambridge and Manchester Universities in the UK and McGill University in Montreal Canada,” Smith wrote on Facebook.

Smith said he would invite the next US ambassador to New Zealand to visit Rutherford’s birthplace memorial “so we can keep the historic record on who split the atom first accurate.”

A website for the US Department of Energy's Office of History and Heritage Resources credits Cockroft and Walton with the milestone, although it describes Rutherford's earlier achievements in mapping the structure of the atom, postulating a central nucleus and identifying the proton.

Trump's remarks provoked a flurry of online posts by New Zealanders about Rutherford, whose work is studied by New Zealand schoolchildren and whose name appears on buildings, streets and institutions. His portrait features on the 100-dollar banknote.

“Okay, I’ve gotta call time. Trump just claimed America split the atom,” Ben Uffindell, editor of the satirical New Zealand news website The Civilian, wrote on X. “That’s THE ONE THING WE DID.”