2005 Courage in Journalism Awards
The only awards program exclusively for international women journalists, the IWMF's Courage in Journalism Awards honor women journalists who have shown extraordinary strength of character and integrity while reporting the news under dangerous or difficult circumstances. The Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes a woman journalist who has a pioneering spirit and whose determination has paved the way for future generations of women in the media.
Nominations are now being sought for the 2005 Courage in Journalism Awards and Lifetime Achievement Award.
The 2004 Courage in Journalism and Lifetime Achievement Awards were announced on June 3. Courage ceremonies were held in Los Angeles on October 14 and in New York on October 19. Winners of the 2004 awards were:
- Salima Tlemcani, 40, a reporter for El Watan newspaper in Algiers, Algeria. Tlemcani has covered armed Islamic groups in Algeria for more than 12 years. During Algeria's 8-year-long civil war she reported accounts of rapes and murders. As a result, she was put on a death list by the Armed Islamic Group, which has assassinated 10 of the 22 journalists named to the list. For that reason, she writes under the pen name Salima Tlemcani, and asked that she receive her award under that name. Tlemcani is currently battling several lawsuits and a prison sentence because of her fearless reporting.
- Gwen Lister, 50, founder of The Namibian newspaper in Windhoek, Namibia. Lister began her career at the Windhoek Observer criticizing the apartheid government of South Africa, which then controlled Namibia. She founded The Namibian in 1985 and continued her fearless reporting. At one point, South African military intelligence sent a mercenary to kill her. Since Namibia's independence, Lister has continued her publication's tradition of independence, often angering the current government of her country.
- Mabel Rehnfeldt, 40, investigations editor for
ABC Color newspaper and host of a daily radio program on
Radio Primero de Marzo in Asuncion, Paraguay. Rehnfeldt covers government
corruption in what is one of the most politically corrupt nations
in the world, according to Transparency International. In 1989, she
was attacked by an unknown assailant after publishing an article about
police department corruption. In 2003, following Rehnfeldt's investigations
into allegations of sexual abuse and embezzlement that involved one
of Paraguay's leading bishops, a kidnapping attempt was made against
her 11-year-old daughter.
- Lifetime Achievement Award: Belva Davis,
71, a pioneering California television journalist who is a special
projects reporter with KRON-TV and the host of This Week in Northern
California on KQED-TV, both in San Francisco. For more than 30
years, she has been instrumental in covering urban affairs and the
needs of ethnic communities in the San Francisco Bay Area. She became
the first African-American television reporter on the West Coast in
1966 when she was hired as an anchor at KPIX-TV, San Francisco's CBS
affiliate.