The Artyom Borovik Award 2000

Artyom Borovik

IN MARCH 1999, A LEGEND OF RUSSIAN JOURNALISM died tragically in a plane crash. His name was Artyom Borovik and he was a familiar figure to regular U.S. viewers of the television magazine 60 Minutes. Borovik made several appearances on the show in the 1990s, helping to expose the foibles, corruption, and policy mistakes of the Russian regime. In 1991 he won an Overseas Press Club Award for a 60 Minutes segment on the bizarre medical lab where the brains of Vladimir Lenin and other Soviet heroes were stored and studied. In his own country, Borovik was best known for his fearless reporting from and criticism of the Soviet war in Afghanistan and, later, of the brutal Russian attempt, still ongoing, to put down a revolt in Chechnya. To many, Borovik, who died at the age of 39, is considered the founding father of the Russian free press.

Last year CBS News, together with Mortimer Zuckerman’s U. S. News (5 World Report, began looking for a way to honor the memory of Borovik, who had reported for both organizations. The result is tonights first presentation of the Artyom Borovik Award, which will be given to a Russian journalist who displayed great personal courage in the course of reporting on Russian culture and society during the year 2000 in any print or broadcast medium.

A total of 14 Russian-language articles and tapes were submitted to the CBS Moscow bureau as entries. A team of four American correspondents based in Moscow did the judging
there; the entries were then vetted by a second squad of U. S.-based journalists with experience reporting from Russia. The winner, who will receive an honorarium of $3,000, had not been chosen by the time Dateline went to press and will be announced at a special presentation at tonight’s dinner.