News from the Kurt Schork Memorial Fund

CALL FOR ENTRIES: 2008 KURT SCHORK AWARDS -- London, February 1 – All submissions must demonstrate professionalism, meet international journalistic standards, and provide evidence that courage and determination played a role in generating the articles. Winners will be chosen by an international panel of five judges. Click here for more info.

2007 KURT SCHORK AWARDS WINNERS ANNOUNCED -- London, October 11 – For the second year in a row, the Kurt Schork Memorial Awards have honoured a journalist killed in Iraq because of critical reporting.
Sahar al-Haideri, 44 – a mother of four and contributor to the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, IWPR, as well as Iraqi media – was gunned down in June in Mosul after receiving death threats for a series of campaigning stories highlighting the influence of religious extremists, especially in curtailing the rights of women. Al-Haideri has received the 2007 Schork award for local journalists.
In the international category, Mario Kaiser, a contributor to Der Spiegel, won for his reporting on a young Mexican women’s journey as an illegal immigrant to New York. Kaiser researched the article by putting himself in the hands of a smuggler in order to understand the hardships of illegal migrants.

KSMF ESTABLISHES PARTNERSHIP WITH IWPR -- February 2004 - The Institute of War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) has entered into a partnership with the Kurt Schork Memorial Fund to help underwrite the awards for local journalists.  Anthony Borden, executive director of the IWPR's Journalists' Protection Reserve Fund, will participate in the 2004 award ceremony panel discussion, as the IWPR is especially interested in safety issues as regards the work of journalists around the world.  The two organizations are planning educational event that will be targeted for mid 2004 at the Frontline Club in London.

KSMF ESTABLISHES PARTNERSHIP WITH THE DART CENTER - January 2004 - Agreeing that their work was complementary in nature, the KSMF has begun a formal partnership with the Dart Center.  The Dart Center is a global network of journalists, journalism educators and health professionals dedicated to improving media coverage of trauma, conflict and tragedy. The Center also addresses the consequences of such coverage for those working in journalism.  The two organizations will begin by sharing board members, moving toward collaborative programs that address issues of mutual concern.

PANEL TO EXPLORE CONFLICT AND CONTROVERSY AT 2003 AWARDS - After the award ceremony on October 28, 2003, CNN's Christiane Amanpour will moderate a panel discussion on Conflict, Controversy, and Courage: The Challenges of Reporting in a Climate of News Management. Panelists will include the 2003 Kurt Schork award winners along with other journalists from around the world to discuss the challenges of reporting on tough subjects when prevailing opinions are against you.  The discussion will be held immediately after the awards at 7:00 p.m. at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York.

INFORMATION ON THE 2003 AWARD WINNERS - CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE

COLUMBIA RECEIVES 50 ENTRIES FOR 2003 AWARDS; JUDGES ARE IN PLACE - June 20, 2003 - This year, 25 entries were received in each category from 25 countries for the Kurt Schork Awards in International Journalism.  Every region of the world was represented, but not in large numbers.  While this represents a drop from last year, two factors should be considered--a) the War in Iraq was an understandable distraction for many journalists and b) submissions were to have been published no later than March 30, 2003, which was right in the middle of the conflict.

According to the staff at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, there was even more outreach this year than last year, including the following:  an advertisement appeared in the Dec. 16 Editor and Publisher Journalism Awards Directory, an advertisement in the International Herald Tribune, Overseas Press Club, expanded contact list of over 500 foreign newspapers, utilized mailing list from other J-school Awards, major media outlets, foreign editors of major newspapers and news magazines, non-governmental and media organizations, the U.N. Correspondents Association, Public Affairs Officers at U.S. Embassies around the world, press freedom organizations and, as always, relied on members of the Advisory Board to get the word out.

The panel of judges for the 2003 awards has been set: :  Julian Borger, The Guardian; Michael Elliott; Editor-at-Large, Time Magazine; Josh Friedman, Director, International Programs at the Graduate School of Journalism; Phil Revzin, Vice President, International, Dow Jones and Publisher, Far Eastern Economic Review; and Alison Smale, Deputy Foreign Editor, The New York Times.  This year, the KSMF has included an additional step of “pre-screeners” at Reuters who sorted through all of the entries during the month of June 2003 and selected the top 10 finalists in each category.  These, in turn, were sent to the five judges on June 30.  The judges will meet for dinner on Thursday, July 24 and judging will take place the following morning, Friday, July 25 at Columbia University. 
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INNAUGURAL KURT SCHORK AWARDS IN INTERNATIONAL JOURNALISM AWARDED IN NEW YORK – October 22, 2002   In its first year, the prize winners were Carlotta Gall, a freelance war reporter on the front lines of Macedonia and Afghanistan, and three local Polish investigative reporters who exposed the sale of corpses in the city of Lodz, Poland.  “Their work, done in the face of many difficult obstacles, exemplifies the spirit of enterprise and commitment to public service that characterized Mr. Schork’s career,” said David Klatell, Acting Dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.  “We hope that these honorees will continue to produce first-rate, illuminating journalism, and that others throughout the world will be inspired to follow their example and the path blazed by Kurt Schork.” 

The awards ceremony included tributes to and remembrances of Kurt Schork by KSMF President Sabina Cosic, and Steven Jukes, Global Head of News for Reuters and Vice President of the KSMF Board of Directors.  A seven-minute video about Schork, produced by Reuters and narrated by Christiane Amanpour, Chief International Correspondent for CNN, provided a moving glimpse into Schork's life and his experiences as a war reporter.

Carlotta Gall has encountered wars and different cultures around the world as a freelance journalist for The New York Times. She has proven herself unafraid to expose mistakes, whether committed by the Pentagon or by Afghan warlords known for taking swift reprisals, always bold and yet fair and meticulous when describing the injustices on the different sides of the fronts of war.  In the past year alone, Gall has been on the front lines in Macedonia and southern Serbia, broken the story in the United States of how Serbian security forces who killed Kosovo Albanians hid the bodies in Serbia, covered the arrest and the handover of The Hague of Slobodan Milosevic, before traveling to Afghanistan last fall, where she remains.

Tomasz Patora, Marcin Stelmasiak and Przemyslaw Witkowski, in an example of powerful, collaborative journalism, produced an investigative report for Gazeta Wyborcza, one of Poland’s largest newspapers, exposing the sale of dead patient corpses to Polish undertakers by the Lodz Public Emergency Station.  Based on a thorough nine-month investigation, the team defied risks, displaying courage and determined reporting to produce the kind of journalism that changes minds in models of transparent, accountable journalism.

The October evening concluded with a panel discussion on "Producing Groundbreaking Journalism Despite Physical Risks and Restrictive Governments," moderated by Christiane Amanpour which gave the student body at the Graduate School of Journalism the opportunity to learn more about the impact of freelance and international reporting from professionals in the field.  Panel participants included Michael Elliott, Editor-at-Large of Time Magazine; Sema Emiroglu, U.N. Bureau Chief of the Turkish Daily Milliyet; Carlotta Gall; and Piotr Stasinski, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Gazeta Wyborcza.
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COLUMBIA ANNOUNCES FIRST KURT SCHORK SCHOLARSHIP RECIPIENTS - September 2002 - The first two scholarships to assist students attending Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism have been awarded to Mara Farah Hvistendahl and Danielle Knight.  Hvistendahl and Knight have both demonstrated a prior serious commitment to international reporting.   Mara Farrah Hvistendahl received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Swathmore College, PA, and she spent time in Beijing, China, studying Mandarin in a curriculum focused on journalism.  Her past experiences include working as a features reporter for The Arizona Republic, Phoenix, AZ, and as News Editor and In-Depth Editor for The Phoenix, Swathmore College.  Her awards include the Presidential Scholar Award, the Pulliam Fellowship to support a journalism internship, the United Nations Association Award recognizing her work with torture victims, and the Lang Opportunity Grant to support social action work.  Danielle Knight received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Antioch College, Yellow Springs, OH.  For the past five years she has served as Environment Correspondent/Editor at the Inter Press Service, Washington, DC, and worked as a freelance radio broadcaster and print reporter for programs and publications including National Public Radio’s Living on Earth, the National Radio Project, Pacifica Radio’s Network News, and America’s Magazine.  The Project Censored Award 2001 from Dollars and Sense Magazine, the Howard Hughes Research Grant for cooperative work/study in Brazil and the Chatterjee Scholarship for International Peace Studies for cooperative/work study at the Panos Institute, Washington, DC, both awarded by Antioch College.
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ROAD TO “SNIPER ALLEY” Named for Kurt Schork - May 21, 2002 – Part of the road from Sarajevo airport into the city was renamed in memory of Kurt Schork who spent three years in the besieged Bosnian capital regularly traveling its dangerous lifeline.  Kurt Schork Street connects the airport to the boulevard nicknamed "Sniper Alley" by foreign reporters during the 1992-95 war, when Serb sharpshooters made Sarajevans run a perilous daily gauntlet. 

"During 1,335 days of the siege, he showed the whole world the truth about the war, the heroism and the scale of the suffering of the citizens of Sarajevo," a plaque reads. Schork, already an honorary citizen of Bosnia, was shot dead in an ambush by rebels in Sierra Leone in May, 2000. He was 53. Some of his ashes are now buried at Sarajevo's Lion cemetery.  Among those at the renaming ceremony was the mother of Admira Ismic, a Muslim girl killed with her Serb sweetheart Bosko Brkic while the 25-year-olds were trying to escape the city. Their bodies lay for days in no man's land.

Schork's "Romeo and Juliet" account of their tragic story was among his most moving reports from Sarajevo. But Nera Ismic remembers him for another reason.  "When all the other journalists were besieging us in search of an exclusive story -- and of course they were only doing their job -- Kurt was the only one who really tried to help us recover their bodies and did not mention the story.   "He was buried next to my children and every time I go to the cemetery I bring him flowers as well. It was an honour to have known him," she said.
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KSMF and Freedom Forum organize panel discussion in New York, discuss freelance and local journalists' work - June 18, 2001 - The following article is featured on Freedom Forum's website about the event.

Free-lancers, local journalists face greatest dangers, panel says

By Sarah L. Rasmusson
Special to freedomforum.org

06.25.01

NEW YORK — Although they may be footloose, globetrotting free-lance journalists in search of big stories are often far from fancy-free. Oppressive governments and lack of support from news corporations can put them severely at risk, those who work in the field say. And often even more vulnerable are the local journalists they work alongside.

The perils of the trade were summed up last week by a man who has spent 10 years as a free lance. "You are in a dangerous situation from time to time, and you are at the whim of an editor far, far away and ... you are expendable," said free-lance journalist Chuck Sudetic at a June 21 forum at the First Amendment Center.

Sudetic, an American living in Canada who is known by his colleagues as the "beast of the Balkans" for his unrelenting efforts to cover the crisis there, was joined by other free-lance and local journalists for "Reporting the World: The Role of Free-Lance and Local Journalists," a joint program by the First Amendment Center and the Kurt Schork Fund. The fund was established in memory of Schork, a free-lance journalist who was working as a Reuters correspondent when he was killed in an ambush last year in Sierra Leone.

"These journalists go to places throughout the world where the very conditions of humanity are being oppressed by conditions of poverty, disease, warfare, natural disasters, and all too often the imposition of pain and suffering of organizations such as governments," said John Schork, Kurt's brother.

"Kurt knew the risks," he added, "but he passionately believed in the value of reporting on these events."

Sudetic agreed. The ultimate pressure to deliver the news as a free-lancer, he said, comes from within. "You can be … seeing dying babies and (yet) say, 'God, am I lucky, foreign reporting is the greatest job in the world.' You get to see amazing things and turn them into language. It's an addiction. It wasn't just doing good things that [sent] you back (for more assignments), it was the next fix."

But the dangers of the job, particularly in areas of military and civil conflict, also run just as deep if not more so for local reporters who often work alongside the free-lancers and risk punishment for exposing wrongs that would otherwise stay hidden.

A Yugoslav journalist on the panel illustrated the cost — and the quandary — of doing this kind of journalism. As a Yugoslavia citizen, Ervin Hladnik-Milharcic, now the New York-based correspondent for the Slovenian newspaper Delo, was technically a local reporter when he began covering the war in Yugoslavia after reporting on a mine strike in 1988.

"Then I went to work in Bosnia," he said. "Whenever I showed up anywhere in Bosnia at a checkpoint … the first question that popped up was not 'Who do you work for' or 'What are your qualifications?' but 'Where are you from?' As far as the Bosnian, Serb and Croatian local forces were concerned, (they wanted to know) are you on our side or their side?"

The audience laughed as he described how his position changed from local reporter to foreign correspondent, without even moving his feet, because of the redrawn territorial borders.

Like Hladnik-Milharcic, Liberian reporter Musue Noha Haddad emphasized safety problems facing local journalists covering dangerous conflicts in their own countries.

"It is such daring situations that have caused me so many attacks, intimidation, (and) harassment, that continue to have me marginalized even today," said Haddad, a staff writer and photographer for The News, the independent daily newspaper based in Monrovia. "I know some sacrifices must be made — I am still alive. I am testimony, and I have not seen any reason to regret my actions. I counsel myself that the sacrifice is worth it at times — that is the challenge we face as the mirror of society."

Haddad called working as a journalist in Liberia "survival in a gruesome and horrifying atmosphere."

"Liberian journalists continue to suffer serious bouts of harassment," she said, because "the Liberian government views press freedom and freedom of speech as a favor which can be discretionarily dished out."

One such example of that, she said, took place on Sept. 25, 1998. A few days after a shooting connected to a civilian uprising, the then-minister of information visited her at The News and warned her and her colleagues not to print photos of dead bodies.

"I personally saw countless civilians — bodies littering the streets," Haddad said, obviously disgusted at the formal request for her to lie. "As local journalists, we are the first victims in times of crisis and the worst victims during military rule," she added.

Rodney Pinder, video news editor for Reuters, United Kingdom, agreed that local journalists often faced the toughest conditions.

"Foreign correspondents can always leave," he said. "[Local journalists] stay, their families are there, and these situations affect their daily lives … . The bravery of people who work in those conditions from day to day, exposing themselves in order to get a story out, can only be marveled at."

Pinder said that his wire service has "clear guidelines" for free-lancers and contract workers outlining that their safety is more valuable than a story.

"We take the view that no story is worth a life," he said.

But he also said news organizations could do more to protect journalists in the field and suggested that media companies collaborate with one another to share information, reduce competitive pressure, and provide safety equipment and training on surviving in hostile environments.

Just as important, Pinder added, is the news media's coverage of their own in times of crisis.

"I personally believe that one of the things we should be looking at in the future is more publicity for attacks on journalists. I believe every attack on a journalist should be publicized … because an attack on a journalist is an attack on freedom itself," he said.

Sudetic also took large media organizations to task for exacerbating the conditions under which free-lancers do their jobs.

"Stringing is a predatory experience, because if you don't get the story, you don't get paid," he said, adding that news organizations don't very often offer a salary, health insurance, retirement funds or contracts to free-lancers, which would provide institutional and financial safety nets for many working on temporary assignments abroad.

Moderator John Kifner, a former foreign correspondent and now an editor for The New York Times, worried openly about the fate of free-lancers in this age of merging media.

"Tremendous cutbacks that major news organizations are making in foreign coverage" as large papers close bureaus will cause "news to become more and more the product of local stringers and free-lancers," he said.

"All this [opens] a Pandora's box — what kind of professional standards are going to prevail in how the news is covered?" Kifner asked.

The evening's debate was underscored by a startling statement from a Sierra Leonean government official in the audience.

As soon as the question-and-answer period began, Cecil A. Blake, the minister of Information and Broadcasting, stood up and called for a moment of silence to honor Kurt Schork's memory.

Saying he supported "the fundamental right to the freedom of information," Blake then noted, "Sierra Leone is not unique in perpetuating violence against journalists." He suggested that journalists' lack of preparedness was the real problem.

"I have yet to find the kind of program that would train journalists ... and let them handle situations they are faced with in various parts of the world," he said, possibly unaware of a program supported by The Freedom Forum and several news organizations. "We have a serious problem with journalists one the ground ... . There is this notion among many of the young in particular that to write for a newspaper immediately qualifies you to be a journalist." After his remarks, Blake abruptly left the room.