(CPJ/IFEX) – On 19 October 1998, CPJ released the following press release on the occasion of its forthcoming eighth annual International Press Freedom Awards: Five journalists will receive 1998 CPJ International Press Freedom Awards in ceremonies in New York on 24 November 1998 for their courage and independence in reporting the news, CPJ has announced. […]
(CPJ/IFEX) – On 19 October 1998, CPJ released the following press release on
the occasion of its forthcoming eighth annual International Press Freedom
Awards:
Five journalists will receive 1998 CPJ International Press Freedom Awards in
ceremonies in New York on 24 November 1998 for their courage and
independence in reporting the news, CPJ has announced.
The award winners are Grémah Boucar, a radio station owner and publisher in
Niger; Gustavo Gorriti, a Peruvian investigative reporter working in Panama;
Goenawan Mohamad, a magazine editor in Indonesia; Pavel Sheremet, a
television bureau chief and newspaper editor in Belarus; and Ruth Simon, a
wire service correspondent imprisoned in Eritrea.
CPJ will also honour Brian P. Lamb, C-SPAN’s founder and chief executive,
with the Burton Benjamin Memorial Award for distinguished achievement in the
cause of press freedom.
The eighth annual awards will be presented at formal ceremonies at the
Waldorf-Astoria in New York City at a benefit dinner attended by leading
national and international journalists. The event will mark the 17th year of
CPJ, an independent, nonprofit organization that works to secure press
freedom worldwide.
The CPJ International Press Freedom Awards honour journalists who have
bravely provided news coverage and viewpoints in the face of arrest,
imprisonment, violence against them and their families, and threats of
death.
“These journalists put their freedom and their lives on the line to report
the news,” said Gene Roberts, chairman of CPJ’s board of directors. “It is
our firm belief that by drawing attention to their courageous acts we can
help thwart the enemies of a free press who would silence their voices.”
CPJ’s executive director Ann K. Cooper said, “The courage and perseverance
of these brave practitioners of press freedom despite continual hardship and
harassment set an example for all who value the right to free expression, a
right supported by almost all nations but practiced by far fewer.”
Speakers at the black-tie event will include Anne Garrels of NPR [National
Public Radio], Tom Brokaw of NBC, Ira Glass of “This American Life,” Karen
Elliott House of Dow Jones International, Peter Jennings of ABC, Dan Rather
of CBS, Tina Rosenberg of “The New York Times”, Charlie Rose of “The Charlie
Rose Show,” Goodloe Sutton of “The Democrat Reporter”, Linden, Ala., and
Cooper and Roberts.
Mortimer Zuckerman and Harold M. Evans are dinner co-chairmen. Zuckerman is
editor in chief and publisher, and Evans, vice chairman and editorial
director, of “U.S. News & World Report”, the “Daily News”, “The Atlantic
Monthly”, and “Fast Company”.
Following is information on the 1998 CPJ International Press Freedom Award
winners and the Burton Benjamin Memorial Award recipient: Grémah Boucar,
founder of Radio Anfani, Niger’s only private radio station, and publisher
of the “Anfani” newspaper and magazine, exemplifies the experiences of
Africa’s few truly independent radio broadcasters in his refusal to allow
government intimidation and harassment to drive the station permanently off
the air. In a region where radio is the most effective medium for reaching
the majority of citizens, Boucar has refused to flee into exile and has
withstood attacks, harassment, and arrest. He remains committed to providing
Niger’s only source of critical coverage of the government and its policies.
Gustavo Gorriti of “La Prensa”, Panama, is Latin America’s top investigative
reporter. Gorriti is an uncompromising advocate for press freedom who has
survived abduction by armed commandos in his native Peru and continual legal
harassment in Panama, where he has lived since 1996. Gorriti’s reporting on
Colombian drug traffickers’ close ties to the Panamanian government nearly
resulted in his expulsion from Panama in 1997. The threat of international
condemnation forced the Panamanian government to extend his work visa for a
year, but it has not put an end to the legal harassment.
Goenawan Mohamad, founder and editor of “Tempo” news magazine in Indonesia,
is a lifelong crusader for press freedom who has sought to hold government
accountable to the public. A beacon of hope to Indonesian journalists, he
has been unwavering in his determination to develop a genuinely independent
press. “Tempo”, the independent weekly he founded in 1971, was the country’s
largest, most respected news magazine. It was silenced in 1994 at the
beginning of
Suharto’s clampdown on Indonesian media. Now, with Suharto gone and a new
government pledging a commitment to press freedom, Mohamad and a group of
former staffers relaunched “Tempo” on 6 October, with a dramatic lead
article investigating the reported rapes of Chinese women during the rioting
that preceded Suharto’s resignation in May.
Pavel Sheremet of Belarus is Minsk bureau chief for ORT Russian television
and editor in chief of the newspaper “Belarusskaya Delovaya Gazeta”.
Sheremet has endured every conceivable type of official harassment for his
coverage of Belarus’ slide toward authoritarianism-arrest, imprisonment, and
denial of the right to report and travel freely-and has become a symbol of
courage for standing up to Belarusian President Aleksander Lukashenko’s
campaign to suppress independent and opposition media.
Ruth Simon of Eritrea, a correspondent for Agence France-Presse, has been
under arrest and held in detention, without trial, since 25 April 1997, for
doing her job as an independent journalist in reporting statements made by
Eritrea’s President Isaias Afewerki that Eritrean troops were fighting
alongside rebel forces in neighboring Sudan.
Brian P. Lamb, recipient of the Burton Benjamin Memorial Award, is chairman
and chief executive officer of C-SPAN, the Cable-Satellite Public Affairs
Network. His breakthrough achievement in conceiving, defining, and
establishing a public affairs television network that would give voice to
all the people added a new dimension to the nation’s and world’s
understanding of press freedom. With the creation nearly 20 years ago of
C-SPAN-a nonprofit network subsidized by the cable industry-the medium of
television made a great leap toward more fully realizing its inherent
potential to inform and illuminate. C-SPAN has demystified the workings of
government for tens of millions of Americans through its gavel-to-gavel
coverage of the U.S. Congress. Not only has it helped create a more informed
electorate, it has become a vehicle for viewers to participate in the
democratic process in new ways. It upholds the press freedom standard of the
Committee to Protect Journalists: Democracy can flourish only when
citizens have the right and the ability to freely express and have access to
information, opinions, and views. The Burton Benjamin Memorial Award honors
the late CBS News senior producer and former CPJ chairman who died in 1988.
More information on the award winners can be found at http://www.cpj.org,
CPJ’s newly redesigned and expanded website, featuring a searchable database
of thousands of cases of attacks on journalists, and the webzine of press
freedom, Dangerous Assignments.
