The Final Call

'Just doing my job,' says award-winning Final Call writer

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LOS ANGELES (FinalCall.com) - When Final Call National Correspondent Charlene Muhammad received a phone call, indicating she’d won a New America Media 2013 Ethnic Media Award, she  twice asked the caller: “Are you sure?!”

Charlene Muhammad

It was true. She’d won the print award for Outstanding Reporting on Civil Liberties Issues in Ethnic Communities for her Final Call news feature article, “Mother love conquers adversity.”

“All Praise Is Due To Allah! I am humbled and honored to have been selected by such a stellar media organization for such a prestigious award. Especially since I believe I was just doing my job by telling the stories of these beautiful, spiritual, heroic women, who have experienced such senseless losses,” said Ms. Muhammad, who has written for The Final Call for 16 years.

Her winning article highlighted the plight of mothers whose children were murdered, but who refuse to lose hope. They’ve dedicated themselves to a movement to keep other mothers from feeling their pain.

“Mother love conquers adversity” symbolizes the types of news stories Ms. Muhammad dreamed of telling as a child. “Not necessarily the stories of people’s children being murdered, because who could foresee such tragedy? But it’s the idea of raising awareness about whatever’s impacting our people, our communities, and finding solutions,” she explained.

She added, “The Final Call Newspaper is a message dedicated to the resurrection of the Black man and woman of America and the world. I thank the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan for granting me the privilege of helping to deliver that message each week. Civil liberties is key in the resurrection and I’m grateful the article, in this paper, has been recognized in this specific category because I feel it will help to further the message,” expressed Ms. Muhammad.

Ms. Muhammad, a radio broadcaster for more than 10 years, is also executive producer and host of “Liberated Sisters,” a talk radio show heard from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. PST on alternating Saturdays on the Pacifica Network’s 90.7 FM/KPFK Radio in Los Angeles. The show also streams live at www.kpfk.org.

Ms. Muhammad also recently received a commendation from the city of Los Angeles and the “Ida B. Wells Award in Journalism” from the Nana Sekyiaabea Foundation for her print and radio broadcast work highlighting issues in Haiti, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Africa.

On March 7, she joined fellow winners to receive her New America Media award during a gala ceremony at KPCC’s Crawford Family Forum at Southern California Public Radio’s Mohn Broadcast Center in Pasadena, Calif.

Competition for the awards was stiff. In its effort to honor exceptional journalism by members of the ethnic media in the region, New America Media received more than 150 individual entries from across Southern California’s media sector, according to Odette Keeley, NAM Awards chair. 

The participating outlets serve Latino, Black, Jewish, Middle Eastern, Armenian, Native American, and Asian-American communities, including Chinese, Filipino, Vietnamese, Korean, South Asian and Japanese audiences, according to Ms. Keeley.