Hassoum Ceesay

Judge

Hassoum Ceeay is an author, museum curator, historian, and former newspaper editor. From 1993-1996, he was a reporter for Newsmonth and then New Citizen newspaper edited by Baboucarr Gaye. In June 1999, he was hired as a features editor of the Daily Observer. He was an editorial writer of the paper from 1999 to 2006. From 1996 to 2006, he anchored the popular History Corner Column of the Daily Observer. He wrote extensively for New African Magazine based in London 2000-2001. From 2011 to 2018, he was a trainer at the nascent Gambia Press Union Journalism School lecturing Media History, which was always very popular with his students.

He has served on the Gambia Press Union Journalism Award Jury since May 2016. In that inaugural edition, Hassoum remembers how the judges led by the late George Christensen had to change the venue for their selection meetings thrice in one day, as they got reports that the feared NIA were hot on their heels to obfuscate their work! ‘In 2019, we did it in comfort and style at the GPU head office, how things have improved indeed’!

His latest book Founding Father: P.S Njie, a moral biography (Gambia National Museum Publication, 2018) has received many critical reviews.