Amnesty International announces media awards

By Michael Lithgow, June 18, 2008 Comments (1)

The winners of Amnesty International's 17th annual Media Awards have been announced. The awards were created to recognize excellence in human rights reporting and to acknowledge journalism's contribution to raising awareness and understanding about human rights issues. It's not exactly art in the traditional sense, but there is the 'art of fact', so to speak, in how the historical “now” is (re)created from the miasma of infinite facts of material reality. And, these are important stories being told by courageous culture-makers and we would like to share in acknowledging their bravery and the importance of their contributions.

This year also marked the first NEW MEDIA award given to Iraqi journalist Sahar al-Haideri, who was tragically killed shortly after her article “Honour killing sparks fears of new Iraqi conflict” was published on the Institute for War and Peace Reporting's website.

The other journalists being honored are:

GABY RADO MEMORIAL AWARD (for a journalist covering human rights for less than five years): Xan Rice, The Guardian

INTERNATIONAL TELEVISION AND RADIO - Eunice Lau, Stephanie Scawen, Tricia Tan, Tony Birtley for The lost tribe - Secret army of the CIA, Al Jazeera English

NATIONAL NEWSPAPERS - Deborah Haynesfor the Iraqi interpreters series, The Times

NATIONS AND REGIONS - Fiona Walker, Dorothy Parker, Fiona Walker, Matt Pinder, Susan McCusker Thompson for Congo to Motherwell, BBC Scotland (television)

PERIODICALS (a winner announced in each subcategory): Newspaper supplements - Jonathan Green for Selling soccer into slavery, Live (Mail on Sunday magazine); Consumer magazines - Fatima Tlisova, Sergei Bachiwin, Alexei Simonov for Russian media freedom, published by Index on Censorship

PHOTOJOURNALISM - Cédric Gerbehaye for Congo unrest, Newsweek

RADIO - Pascale Harter, Ceri Thomas, Mike Thompson for Where there's muck: Mike Thomson in the Congo, Radio 4, Today Programme

TELEVISION DOCUMENTARY AND DOCUDRAMA - Gretchen Wallace, Jane Wells, Annie Sundberg, Ricki Stern, Nick Fraser, Brian Steidle for Storyville: The devil came on horseback, BBC FOUR / Break Thru Films

TELEVISION NEWS - Chris Rogers, Deborah Turness, Tony Hemmings for Too young to die - Children of the frontline, ITV News / ITN