First prize for "wounded photographer".

Reporter John-Andre´ Samuelsen of NRK Vestfold was awarded first prize in the Open Class at the Vestfold journalists' awards ceremony on Thursday 15 March for his programme "Sølvfuglen fra Sandefjord". During parts of the 2016 season, Samuelsen followed much of the activity surrounding the Dakota. He filmed and interviewed in the hangar, at the Dakota Terminal, outside the aircraft, on board the aircraft, and accompanied it on several tours. On these occasions, he attached "go-pro" cameras to the plane's wing, roof and under the belly. And he made his own recordings with a hand-held camera in Harvarden while they flew together with the Dakota. It was during this flight that he got a nasty cut on his forehead when his own camera was caught by the air pressure in the Harvard's back seat, giving the reporter a real tickle. The result was a 13-minute TV version and a 7-minute version, which has been shown several times on NRK under the vignette "Glimpses of Norway". The program was also shown on Swedish TV this spring. Dakota Norway also assumes that the TV report had an impact on the extremely good result we had in the 2017 season with almost 2,000 people on the flights. The jury of the Vestfold journalists' regional award for good journalistic craftsmanship fell for Samuelsen's creative photo work in and around the Dakota. Many of the TV images were of a category the jury had not seen before, and they rewarded Samuelsen's long and intense work. - "We in the editorial team are proud of the award and think it's great that hard work pays off," says Jan Henrik Aubert, Head of Editorial at NRK Vestfold. - "It was very nice and a bit surprising to win Open Class," says John-Andre´ himself. Watch the award-winning film from NRK here....