Courage Awards: 2006 Courage Award Winners
Jill Carroll, United States
May Chidiac, Lebanon
Gao Yu, China
Jill Carroll, United States
Jill Carroll, a staff writer for The Christian Science Monitor, was working in Baghdad as a freelance reporter for the Monitor when she was abducted on January 7, 2006. Carroll was kidnapped about 100 yards from the office of Adnan al-Dulaimi, a prominent Sunni politician. She had scheduled an interview with him but started to leave after an aide told her he was unavailable. Upon driving away, a large truck blocked the path. Armed men surrounded the car, and Carroll was shoved and kidnapped. After an 82-day ordeal, she was released March 30 and returned to the U.S. April 2.
Carroll, 28, was attacked along with a driver – Adnan Abbas – and an interpreter. The interpreter, Iraqi Alan Enwiya, was killed in the attack. Carroll wrote an account of her kidnapping and subsequent captivity, which was published in an 11-part series in The Christian Science Monitor in August.
Carroll is a Michigan native who attended the University of Massachusetts at Amherst; she graduated in 1999 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. After college, Carroll worked as a reporting assistant at The Wall Street Journal until August 2002. She then moved to Jordan where she reported for the English-language daily newspaper The Jordan Times in Amman.
A few months after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Carroll moved to Iraq to pursue a freelance career as a Middle East correspondent. As a freelance journalist, she worked for news outlets such as the Italian news agency ANSA, USA Today and US News & World Report.
Despite the risk, Carroll’s assignments included reporting in the Anbar desert while embedded with U.S. Marines and chronicling the evolution of an Iraqi town from a haven for insurgents to a place laden with tension between townspeople and marines. On more than one occasion, Carroll awoke to the sound of bombs in Baghdad, but her tenacity led her to take time to talk to the people whose lives were forever changed by these blasts. For instance, she began reporting on one story about car bombs 17 months before it was published, returning every month or two to continue to tell the story of a family whose three-year-old daughter was paralyzed by a bomb.
During the fall 2006 academic semester, Carroll is taking a leave of absence from the Monitor to be one of four fellows at the Joan Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University. She will research the decline of foreign bureaus in the newspaper industry.
Carroll was born October 6, 1977 in Detroit, Michigan.
May Chidiac, Lebanon
May Chidiac is one of the best known faces on Lebanese television.
In September 2005, the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation journalist lost her left hand and left leg as a result of a bomb exploding under the driver’s seat of her car. She believes the attack came as a result of her criticism of Syria’s involvement in Lebanon.
According to reports obtained by the Committee to Protect Journalists, half a kilogram of explosives was placed in Chidiac’s Range Rover. The explosion blew off the driver-side door, which was recovered more than 30 feet away from Chidiac’s car.
Chidiac, 43, had just hosted a show addressing Syria’s possible involvement in former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri’s assassination and the fears of violence ahead because of the UN report about the investigation.
Following the attack, Chidiac spent several months in France recovering from her injuries. She had previously hosted Nharkom Said (Good Day), an LBC program broadcast every Sunday covering subjects such as politics, theater and culture. On July 11, the day before the Israeli assault on Lebanon began, Chidiac returned to Lebanon to resume her broadcasting career. She started working again on July 19 at LBC, where she hosts a current events program called Bikol Joraa (With Audacity) every Tuesday.
Despite the violence and ongoing turmoil in her country, Chidiac is known for her upbeat attitude. She began her journalism career at the Voice of Lebanon radio station while studying journalism at the Lebanese University. After a three-year stint with Voice of Lebanon, Chidiac began working for the LBC in 1985.
In October 1990, the Syrian occupation of Lebanon drove the head of the interim government, General Michel Aoun, into exile in Paris. Chidiac moved to Switzerland that year and worked at the Lebanese embassy. She returned to Lebanon at the end of 1991.
Chidiac, who holds a master’s degree in journalism from the Lebanese University, has taught at Notre Dame University in Lebanon and plans to return in October to teach a course in broadcasting and news operation.
In January, Chidiac announced her intention to run for a parliamentary seat left vacant by Maronite legislator Edmond Naim’s death. She later decided against entering the election due to her rehabilitation and to avoid the divisive campaign.
Chidiac was awarded the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize in May 2006.
She was born July 20, 1963 in Beirut, Lebanon.
Gao Yu, a freelance journalist who lives in Beijing, has twice been jailed for her reporting. She continues to fight against censorship, expressing her belief in human rights and the value of democracy.
Gao, 62, won the IWMF’s Courage in Journalism Award in 1995 but was unable to receive her award due to her imprisonment in China.
An economic and political reporter, Gao was sentenced in 1993 to six years in prison for “leaking state secrets,” through – ironically – a pro-Chinese government newspaper in Hong Kong.
Gao was released on medical parole in March 1999, but the terms of her release restricted her from speaking with reporters. She completed the remainder of her jail term at home and returned to journalism as a correspondent and independent commentator for magazines such as Open and The Trend in Hong Kong.
In 1962, Gao enrolled in the Chinese Language and Literature department of Renmin University of China. She initially intended to major in news media, but these courses were cancelled because of the Great Chinese Famine, which killed millions of people. Gao’s graduation from the university was delayed for a year due to the Cultural Revolution; during this time, various aspects of the government were halted, including economic activity and education systems. Gao eventually obtained a degree in literature theory.
After college, Gao held various reporting and editing positions. She was a reporter for China News from 1980-1988, the deputy editor-in-chief of the weekly publication Economics from 1988-1989 and a correspondent for the Hong Kong newspaper Mirror from 1990-1993.
During the 1980s, Gao became known for her investigative pieces on economic issues and her interviews with many of the major architects of reform. Though she was placed under house arrest, Gao’s writings were instrumental in the Chinese 1989 pro-democracy movement. Her willingness to jeopardize her safety and career in the service of freedom, democracy and human rights significantly contributed to the free press movement. She won the Golden Pen of Freedom in 1995 from the Federation of International Editors of Journals.
Gao initially received the IWMF Courage in Journalism Award in 1995 but was unable to accept it due to her imprisonment.
She was born February 23, 1944 in Chongqing, China.