Press Release - Courage In Journalism Awards Announced for 2003
|
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
For more information: |
Courage In Journalism Awards Announced for 2003
Washington, DC, May 7, 2003 -- A Guatemalan columnist who reports on human rights violations, the editor of a weekly newspaper in Ukraine who pursues government corruption and an American reporter whose beat has been the world’s hotspots will receive Courage in Journalism Awards from the International Women’s Media Foundation for 2003.
The IWMF's Courage in Journalism Awards honor women journalists who have shown extraordinary strength of character in the pursuit of a free press, despite financial hardships, censorship, physical attacks and death threats.
Winners for 2003 are:
-- Marielos Monzon, 32, a columnist for Prensa Libre in Guatemala City, Guatemala. Monzon reports on the human rights violations that continue seven years after the end of a brutal civil war in which an estimated 200,000 people were killed in her country. Beginning in 1998, she has received continuous threats, many of them against her life, yet she continues reporting.
-- Tatyana Goryachova, 36, editor in chief of Berdyansk Delovoy, an independent weekly newspaper in Berdyansk, Ukraine. Goryachova has pursued stories about government corruption and malfeasance despite constant financial crises, harassment by the government and death threats. In January 2002, Goryachova’s eyesight was put at risk when an unknown assailant attacked her with hydrochloric acid, most likely in retaliation for her reporting.
-- Anne Garrels, 51, foreign correspondent with National Public Radio in the United States. Garrels’ latest assignment was the war in Iraq. She was one of two U.S. women journalists inside Baghdad at the war’s beginning. During the U.S. bombing of the Palestine Hotel, she was only a few floors away from the explosion that claimed the lives of two journalists. Garrels has often put herself at risk to bear witness to conflict in the globe’s hotspots, including Israel and the Occupied Territories, Afghanistan, Chechnya, the former Soviet Union, Bosnia, Kosovo, Tiananmen Square and the Gulf War.
“This year’s Courage in Journalism Award winners have shown bravery in pursuing the news. Some face day-in, day-out threats while reporting on corruption and human rights abuses in their own countries. They are never safe, not even in their own homes. Others serve as witnesses to war, bringing alive the human face of conflict while dodging bullets, bombs and death threats,” said Judy Woodruff, prime anchor and senior correspondent at CNN and chair of the Courage in Journalism Awards. “We are all wiser and better informed about the world because of their work.”
The IWMF also announced that it would give its Lifetime Achievement Award to Argentine journalist Magdalena Ruiz Guinazu. Ruiz, whose career has spanned nearly 50 years, 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. In addition, she writes a column for La Nacion newspaper. Ruiz is a founder and current president of Asociacion Periodistas, an Argentine press freedom organization.
The International Women’s Media Foundation created the Courage in Journalism Awards in 1990 to honor women journalists who have shown exceptional courage and bravery in the face of grave danger. Since 1990, 44 journalists have won the awards. This year’s awards will be presented at ceremonies in New York on October 16 and in Los Angeles on October 21.
The International Women’s Media Foundation was launched in 1990 with a mission to strengthen the role of women in the news media worldwide, based on the belief that no press is truly free unless women share an equal voice. The IWMF network is more than 1,500 women in the media in more than 130 countries worldwide.
###