Congratulations to Jason Murphy Journalism Lecturer at Griffith College Cork
Griffith College Cork lecturer Jason Murphy has taken the top prize at one of the world’s most prestigious international radio festivals for his documentary about a young marathon runner with epilepsy. Murphy’s documentary: No Time To Lose, which was broadcast as part of RTE’s Documentary on One slot in October 2016, has won the Prix Italia International Radio competition. The announcement was made in Milan at the weekend, with Murphy beating off strong contenders from the BBC and from Arte radio in France among the shortlist of eight in the Radio Documentary category. This is only the third time that a documentary broadcast on RTE has won the award, with the last Irish documentary win 20 years ago. This year’s awards drew over 200 entries from more than 40 countries spread across 5 continents, with just 7 overall awards on offer.
Murphy’s moving documentary followed 19-year-old Katie Cooke, who has been epileptic since the age of 9, and suffers up to 15 seizures a day, as she prepared to run the Dublin City half marathon in September 2016. In announcing the award, the judging panel said it had felt very connected to Katie’s story, partly due to the sound design and the elegant structure in the documentary. “The scenes are intimate, lively, realistic, and recorded on location, and this puts the listener straight into the story. The narration is short, fluent and without pathos,” said the jury. Commenting on the award, Murphy said he was delighted with the win and said that Katie’s story had been an inspiring one from the start. He said he wished to thank Katie Cooke, her Mum Nicky and Dr. Colin Doherty, the people whom this documentary revolves around, as well as the rest of the winning production team: Tim Desmond, Mark Dwyer and Liam O’Brien.
Murphy teaches radio documentary to journalism students at Griffith College Cork. He is currently researching a PhD in the Department of Media and Communications at Mary Immaculate College in Limerick where he is looking at ways to engage young people in participatory media.
