Courage Awards: Lifetime Achievement Award Recipients
Peta Thornycroft, 2007
Elena Poniatowska Amor, 2006
Molly Ivins, 2005
Belva Davis, 2004
Magdalena Ruiz Guinazu, 2003
Mary McGrory, 2002
Colleen "Koky" Dishon, 2001
Flora Lewis, 2000
Peggy Peterman, 1999
Bonnie Angelo, 1998
Nancy Woodhull, 1997
Meg Greenfield, 1996
Helen Thomas, 1995
Katharine Graham, 1994
Nan Robertson, 1993
Barbara Walters, 1992
A journalist for more than three decades, Peta Thornycroft is one of the few remaining independent journalists in Zimbabwe. As a correspondent for The Daily Telegraph in London, Thornycroft, 62, covered the 2002 election when President Robert Mugabe stole victory with a campaign of violence in the midst of the country’s spiraling economic crisis. She also contributes to Voice of America and Independent Group in South Africa.
In the face of a media crackdown in Zimbabwe, Thornycroft renounced her British citizenship in 2001 and became a Zimbabwean citizen so that she could continue to report in the country. Her decision followed the passage the Freedom of Information and Right to Privacy Bill by Zanu-PF, the country’s ruling party. The bill ruled that all journalists working in Zimbabwe had to be Zimbabwean citizens.
Thornycroft is susceptible to harassment and arrest every day. She works in a country where foreign correspondents have been expelled, newspapers have shut down and independent journalists have been tortured. But Thornycroft continues to attend press conferences and political party gatherings – and to report on issues that negatively reflect the actions of the government of Zimbabwe, such as the lack of water and rampant inflation.
Well known by authorities, Thornycroft was arrested and detained in eastern Zimbabwe in March 2002. She had violated the new media law by traveling openly as a reporter after the presidential election, despite not getting state accreditation. S he was held for five days even though no charges were filed against her. Thornycroft’s imprisonment was condemned by the international media community, and she was released after application to the High Court in Zimbabwe.
Thornycroft grew up in the former British colony of Rhodesia, which became independent Zimbabwe in 1980. She married a Zimbabwean and moved to South Africa, where she started a data processing company with her mother. At the same time, she developed an interest in journalism. She got a job at the Durban Daily News and went on to cover apartheid and to report from Angola and the Congo, writing about gun runners and South Africa’s secret chemical and biological warfare projects. Eventually, Thornycroft worked for white-owned newspapers that challenged South Africa’s apartheid government. She then became a full-time freelancer for British, U.S. and South African outlets.
Despite living in fear of arrest, Thornycroft has paved the way for and supported other journalists. She helped to establish the Media Monitoring Project, an independent trust that works to promote responsible journalism in Zimbabwe. She also was a key figure in the 1992 Campaign for Open Media, a movement to transform the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) into a public broadcaster. Thornycroft also helped to form the Public Broadcasting Initiative, a project that brought broadcast journalism training to journalists at the SABC. She developed advocacy and media support programs for the SABC, including its groundbreaking youth series and the launch of South Africa’s first school television service.
Thornycroft was born February 26, 1945 in the United Kingdom.
Elena Poniatowska’s career spans more than a half century. A renowned journalist and author, Poniatowska, 74, is the author of various novels, short stories, essays, a play and “testimonial narratives” (chronicles of events compiled from eyewitness interviews). She moved to Mexico during World War II and later attended secondary school in Torresdale, Pennsylvania.
Poniatowska began her journalism career in 1953 at Excelsior newspaper in Mexico, where she wrote social chronicles of Mexico’s upper classes and conducted interviews with writers, painters and other cultural figures. After a year there, Poniatowska started reporting for the newspaper Novedades, where she worked until 2000. A collaborator and contributor to various Mexican media outlets throughout her career, Poniatowska was one of the founders of Cineteca Nacional (National Film Archives), the newspaper La Jornada and Siglo XXI, one of Mexico’s most prestigious publishing houses. She also helped found the feminist magazine Fem in 1976.
Poniatowska is best known for La Noche de Tlatelolco (1971), which chronicles the lives and deaths of Mexican students who were protesting police repression one week prior to the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. It was published in English in 1975 as Massacre in Mexico. Another of Poniatowska’s well know works is Hasta no verte Jesus mio (Here’s to You, Jesusa), which was published in 1969 and focuses on Mexico’s revolution of 1910 as shown through one woman’s personal struggle, becoming the collective portrait of thousands of oppressed Mexican women during that time period.
Poniatowska has written more than 20 books, including Querido Diego, te abraza Quiela (1976) (Dear Diego, Quiela Embraces You), Nada nadie: las voces del temblor (1988) ( Nothing, Nobody: The Voices of the Mexico City Earthquake) and Tinísima (1992), a biography about Italian photographer Tina Modotti . Poniatowska’s work has been translated into numerous languages.
In 1979, Poniatowska was the first woman to receive Mexico’s National Journalism Prize, which she was awarded for her outstanding contributions to the diffusion of Mexican cultural and political expressions. She holds several honorary degrees and has won various other awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1993 and the Mazatlan Prize for Literature twice, in 1972 and 1992. Poniatowska was also honored with the Xavier Villaurrutia Prize in 1971 for La Noche de Tlatelolco but declined it, arguing that no award went to those who died in the massacre.
Throughout her career, Poniatowska has been dedicated to promotion of equality, humanitarianism and human rights, particularly among women. She lives in Mexico, where she continues to write.
Poniatowska was born May 19, 1932 in Paris, France.
Molly Ivins has been a nationally syndicated political columnist with Creators Syndicate since 2001. Her column, a humorous approach to national politics and Texas, appears in more than 100 newspapers.
Ivins began her career in 1964 at The Houston Chronicle before moving in 1967 to the Minneapolis Tribune, where she became the first woman police reporter in Minneapolis. In 1970, she became co-editor of The Texas Observer. In 1976, Ivins joined The New York Times as a political reporter. In 1977, The Times named Ivins its Rocky Mountain bureau chief. During this time, Ivins covered nine mountain states on her own. In 1982, Ivins returned to Texas and became a columnist for the Dallas Times-Herald, until it closed in 1991. She then moved to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, where she was a political columnist for nine years.
Her freelance work has appeared in magazines such as Esquire, Harper’s, the Atlantic Monthly, Nation, Progressive and Mother Jones. Ivins also does commentary for National Public Radio and NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and has appeared as a weekly commentator on CBS’ 60 Minutes. She has also written about press issues for the ACLU and journalism reviews.
Ivins is also a best-selling author. She has published six books: Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She? (Random House, 1991); Nothin’ But Good Times Ahead, (Random House, 1993); You Got to Dance with Them What Brung You: Politics in the Clinton Years, (Random House, 1998); Shrub: The Short But Happy Political Life of George W. Bush, (Random House, 2000); Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush’s America, (Random House, 2003) and Who Let the Dogs In? Incredible Political Animals I Have Known, (Random House, 2004).
Ivins has received numerous awards for her work, including the 2003 Ivan Allen, Jr. Prize for Progress and Service, the 2003 Eugene V. Debs Award in the field of journalism and the award for print journalism from the Reporters’ Committee for Freedom of the Press in 2005. She has also been a three-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and served on the Pulitzer Prize jury in 1992.
Ivins is active in Amnesty International’s Journalism Network and the American Civil Liberties Union. She has also served on the board of the National News Council. In 2001 she was elected to the National Academy of Arts and Sciences.
She is single with no children.
Belva Davis has more than 30 years of experience as a public affairs journalist in the San Francisco area. Now semi-retired, Davis continues to work as a special projects reporter at KRON-TV and as host of This Week in Northern California on KQED-TV.
Davis began her journalism career at age 22, writing freelance articles for Jet magazine. She then wrote full time for Bay Area African-American newspapers, including the San Francisco Sun-Reporter and the Bay Area Independent. During this time, Davis covered just about every topic she could, but concentrated on the black social and political scene.
Davis’ broadcasting career began in radio, where she worked at various radio stations in the Bay area, including KSAN, KDIA and KNEW. She was hired by KNEW in 1964 to host a weekend radio show called The Belva Davis Show before she entered the television industry. In addition, Davis’s voice was used for KNEW’s public service announcements that were aired throughout the week. Through these announcements, she soon became known as “Miss KNEW.”
In 1966, she became the first African-American woman television reporter on the West Coast when she was hired as an anchor at KPIX-TV in San Francisco. At KPIX, Davis was instrumental in creating and hosting All Together Now, one of the first prime-time public affairs programs in the country to focus on ethnic communities. Davis co-anchored All Together Now, accompanied by a host from a different ethnic group who would change every week.
She joined KQED-TV in 1977, where she hosted A Closer Look and Evening Edition. She moved to KRON-TV in 1981 as a news anchor and urban affairs specialist, covering political issues, fiscal concerns and city planning issues. In 1981, Davis became co-host of the Sunday morning news and public affairs program, California This Week on KRON-TV, which she hosted for 18 years.
Davis has won six local Emmy Awards and has been recognized with awards from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Association of Black Journalists and numerous local organizations.
Davis has been a long-time member and official in the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA). She is also active in the Bay area community, including serving on the Advisory Council of the International Museum of Women (slated to open in 2006).
Davis, 71, is married and the mother of a son, 51, and a daughter, 45.
Magdalena Ruiz Guinazu’s career in the media has spanned close to 50 years. She is one of Argentina’s most distinguished journalists. As host of Magdalena Tempranisimo on Radio Mitre in Buenos Aires, she broadcasts to one of Argentina’s largest audiences. She also writes for the daily newspapers La Nacion and Pagina 12, and since 2002 has been host of a daily evening show, La vuelta con Magdalena (Back with Magadalena). She is the founder and current president of Asociacion Periodistas, an Argentine press freedom organization. In addition, she has produced documentary television films on various subjects, including the trial of the Argentine military junta and censorship during the years of military rule in Argentina.
In 1984, with the return of democracy to Argentina, Ruiz was one of ten members of the Comision Nacional por la desaparicion de Personas (National Commission on the Disappearance of People), an organization that has documented reports of people who disappeared during the military dictatorship in Argentina. She is an eight-time winner of the Martin Fierro award (the Argentine equivalent of the Oscar), and in 1994 was awarded the Martin Fierro de Oro (Gold Martin Fierro Award) for lifetime achievement. She is the recipient of France’s Legion d’Honneur and Italy’s Order of Merit in recognition of her human rights work.
Ruiz is the authors of several books, including a novel, a short story collection and Habia una vez…la vida (Once Upon a Time…Life), a collection of her newspaper columns.
She was born February 15, 1935 in Buenos Aires. She is the mother of four and the grandmother of five.
Deceased
Mary McGrory joined the Washington Post as a columnist in September 1981. She joined the Washington Star in 1947 and debuted as a national commentator in 1954 when assigned the biggest story of the day, the Army-McCarthy hearings. Her column has been syndicated since 1960 and currently appears two times a week. In 1975, McGrory received journalism’s highest honor, the Pulitzer Prize for commentary. The award’s citation read “for trenchant commentary spread over more than 20 years as a reporter and a columnist in the nation’s capital.”
McGrory was named the 33rd Elijah Parish Lovejoy Fellow in 1985. She received the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Award for Freedom of Speech in 1995 and the Fourth Estate Award in 1998 from the National Press Club. The Washington Post gave her its highest honor in 2001, the Eugene Meyer Award.
In more than 60 years as a journalist, Colleen "Koky" Dishon has opened many doors previously closed to women.
She began her career in 1941 while still in high school at the Zanesville (Ohio) Sunday Times Signal. During World War II, she worked for the Associated Press and later became editor and president of a news and feature service she founded. Dishon then worked at newspapers in the Midwest before joining the Chicago Tribune in 1975. At the Tribune, she was responsible for creating at least 15 new sections for the newspaper. In 1981, only six years after she was hired, she became assistant managing editor/features, and in 1982, a year later, she became the first woman on the Tribune's masthead.
Dishon officially "retired" in 1994, but she has continued in the newspaper business as an editorial consultant, creating a weekly newspaper in Chicago, helping the South Bend (Indiana) Tribune go from evening to morning publication and writing a chapter about the evolution of feature pages for the 1998 book, Defining Moments in Journalism. In addition, she has just co-authored a book on how to design newspaper sections.
Flora Lewis was one of handful of women who forged successful careers as foreign correspondents. From her first reporting assignment as a UCLA campus stringer for the Los Angeles Times to her job as The New York Times foreign affairs columnist, Lewis's cleanly crafted prose and wide-ranging intellect brought the world into focus for her readers.
A graduate of Columbia Journalism School, she covered the Navy and State Departments for the AP during World War II. Post-World War Europe then became Lewis's beat. She worked as a stringer for Time, The London Observer, The Economist of London, France-Soir and The New York Times magazine.
In 1956, Lewis joined the Washington Post, moving to the Post's New York bureau in 1965. A syndicated foreign affairs column begun in Paris in 1967 kept her on the move for years, taking her to Vietnam five times in five years, to the Middle East to cover the Six Day War and to Chicago and Miami during the 1968 political conventions.
In 1972, Lewis became chief of The New York Times Paris bureau. Four years later she was given the additional title of European diplomatic correspondent. In 1980, she became only the third Times correspondent to write the foreign affairs column. Lewis wrote a weekly column for The New York Times Syndicate through April 2002 and lived in Paris until her death in June 2002.
Deceased
In more than 30 years as a reporter, columnist and editorial writer for the St. Petersburg Times (Florida), Peggy Peterman fought the twin battles of racism and sexism in the newsroom while consistently setting high standards for herself and serving as a role model for others.
She was hired to write for the "Negro News Page" in 1965 after writing letters to the editor of the paper about racial inequities. Soon after starting her new job, Peterman successfully lobbied to abolish the very page where her articles appeared because she felt it promoted segregation.
In writing columns that would specifically convey the experiences of black Americans, Peterman hoped "to paint the pictures of black people's hopes, dreams, triumphs, tragedies, successes." She wrote primarily about those topics closest to her heart - social, children's, and international issues - and penned poignant, introspective pieces until her retirement in 1996.
As a journalist who was instrumental in creating a more open environment for both women and minorities in the media, Peterman offered "there's still a lot of work to do in balancing the news. But I've got to admit it is much much better than it was."
Bonnie Angelo has covered a wide range of events in all 50 states and more than 60 countries around the world as a correspondent for Time magazine. After 11 years as a Washington correspondent covering politics at the White House, in 1978 she was appointed London bureau chief and thus became the first woman to head a Time bureau overseas. Eight years later, she was named New York bureau chief for Time and later became its first correspondent-at-large. Angelo's pioneering spirit and determination have made her a well-respected journalist and a role model for other women.
Angelo began her career on her hometown paper, the Winston-Salem Journal and Sentinel. She moved to Washington to become a correspondent for Newsday and then a syndicated columnist for Newhouse News Service. In 1966, she joined Time in the Washington bureau. She was president of the Women's National Press Club and was at the forefront in the battle to end discrimination against women journalists.
Angelo took leave from her position as contributing correspondent to Time to complete her book First Mothers: The Women Who Shaped the Presidents (William Morrow) due out in October 2000. She is a member of the IWMF board of directors.
Nancy Woodhull ~ 1997
Deceased
"Do something to help another woman every day." This motto describes the way Nancy Woodhull lived her life as journalist and activist, and as a mother and a friend. When she died of breast cancer in April 1997 at age 52, Woodhull had already risen to great heights within the news media. At the same time, she boldly challenged the industry on a wide range of diversity and equity issues. She made it to the top of the news media without ever compromising her commitment to women's rights.
Woodhull is well remembered for breaking new ground for women and minorities as a founding editor of USA Today. She began her career at The News Tribune in Woodbridge, New Jersey, and later joined the Detroit Free Press as a reporter. She held a variety of editorial positions for Gannett's Rochester newspaper, was senior vice president of The Freedom Forum and executive director of The Freedom Forum Media Studies Center.
Out of her steadfast commitment to supporting women, Woodhull took on numerous leadership positions including vice chair of the IWMF, co-founder of Women, Men and Media and president of the National Women's Hall of Fame.
Woodhull is survived by her husband, Bill, and their daughter, Tennessee.
Meg Greenfield ~ 1996
Deceased
As the editorial page editor for The Washington Post, Meg Greenfield was one of the most powerful women in newspaper journalism in the United States. She was responsible for the tone, direction and policy of one of the nation's most politically influential publications. Greenfield was able to strengthen or discourage careers, both in journalism and politics, and to shape national policy.
She arrived at The Washington Post in 1968 and just one year later was appointed deputy editor of the editorial page. A decade later Greenfield won a Pulitzer for her writing and in 1979 was appointed editorial page editor.
"The presence among us today of heroes who have taken true risks should throw into relief this great good fortune we enjoy as American journalists," she said upon receiving her award. "We should expend our own relative good fortune as protected observers on those who do not share it."
Greenfield died of lung cancer in May 1999.
Helen Thomas, after 57 years at United Press International, was known as a Washington institution and the "Dean of the White House Press Corps." Since she began her career, she has been fighting battles and opening doors for women.
Thomas was the first woman to serve as White House bureau chief and to be elected president of the White House Correspondents Association. She worked tirelessly throughout the 1960s to open the National Press Club to women and, once it did, became the club's first female officer.
Thomas is known for her direct and hard-hitting questions at presidential press conferences and enjoys enormous respect from politicians and colleagues alike. She was the only print journalist to travel with President Nixon on his historic trip to China in 1972.
Thomas has written two books, including a memoir published in 1999. She has received dozens of awards and continues to actively travel worldwide to cover American presidents. In July 2000, Thomas joined Hearst Newspapers as a bi-weekly columnist writing on national issues.
Deceased
Katharine Graham, former Chairman of the Executive Committee of The Washington Post Company's Board of Directors, was recognized for the bold choices she made throughout her more than 30-year career at the newspaper.
From publishing the Pentagon Papers, to taking The Washington Post public, to proceeding with the Watergate investigation despite enormous pressures, Graham has distinguished herself with the courageous choices that have helped shape the nation's political history. She originally joined the staff of The Washington Post working in the editorial and circulation departments, moving up to serve as publisher from 1969 to 1979 and Chairman of the Board from 1973 to 1991.
Graham broke through gender barriers by becoming the first woman on the board of several powerful media groups, including the powerful Associated Press and the American Newspaper Publishers Association. In 1998, she received a Pulitzer Prize for her memoir, Personal History.
Nan Robertson was a reporter and feature writer for The New York Times for more than 30 years in New York, Washington and Paris. "Toxic Shock," based on her own nearly fatal struggle with the disease, was a cover story in the New York Times Sunday Magazine and won Robertson the Pulitzer Prize in 1983 for feature writing - making her the third woman at the paper to win journalism's highest award since the Pulitzers were established in 1917.
Before moving to the Times, Robertson was a special correspondent in Europe for the New York Herald Tribune European Edition (now the International Herald Tribune), and wrote for the Milwaukee Journal, and Stars & Stripes.
Robertson's honors include a Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship, multiple awards and an honorary degree. She has written two books: Getting Better: Inside Alcoholics Anonymous and The Girls in the Balcony: Women, Men, and The New York Times. The latter, published in 1992, chronicles the 1972 class action law suit brought against The New York Times for gender discrimination.
After her retirement from The New York Times in 1988, Robertson teaches at the University of Maryland College of Journalism.
Barbara Walters blazed a distinguished path in television for female journalists as the first woman to co-host a network morning broadcast on NBC's Today Show.
Following two years as a newscaster on the ABC Evening News, Walters moved to co-host the weekly ABC newsmagazine "20/20" and star in her own "Barbara Walters' Specials." Her most renowned interviews included the first joint television appearance of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in 1977 and an hour long conversation with Cuban President Fidel Castro. Walters has also interviewed every American president and first lady since Richard Nixon.
Today, Walters continues her one-on-one interviews for her television specials and is co-owner, co-executive producer and co-host of "The View" which premiered on ABC in 1997. Her exclusive interviews with world figures have made her one of the most acclaimed and influential journalists in television today.