2007 OPC Award Winners

As always with the Overseas Press Club awards, the map of world conflict is a predictor of where the winning journalists find their inspiration. This year the list includes all the countries where tumult and controversy reign: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Congo, China. Two of our four photography awards recount the shocking attacks on former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, while two others deal with death in the Congo—in the human civil war, and a war against endangered mountain gorillas.

A half dozen awards go to reporters in Iraq and Afghanistan, including one to the book that tells the story behind Curveball, "the con man who caused a war."

Congratulations to all of our winners, and thanks to the award sponsors and the judges who devoted so many hours to reading, viewing and listening to the entries. And we would be remiss in not giving a special round of applause to two news organizations whose dedication to quality international journalism will be plain on the following pages: Getty Images, whose photographers are winners in three photo categories, and The New York Times, recipient this year of six Overseas Press Club awards.

1. THE HAL BOYLE AWARD Best newspaper or wire service reporting from abroad STEVE FAINARU The Washington Post "The Private Armies of Iraq" "The Private Armies of Iraq" is a groundbreaking exposé of private security firms in Iraq, written months before the Blackwater scandal found guards from one of the largest security firms opening fire on Iraqi civilians. In a deeply reported, riveting narrative, Fainaru shines a penetrating light on a murky world. The OPC salutes the achievement of a single reporter tackling one of the most important stories of the year. CITATION Baghdad Bureau The New York Times "Iraq: Tour of Duty"
2. THE BOB CONSIDINE AWARD Best newspaper or wire service interpretation of international affairs PAUL BECKETT, ERIC BELLMAN, KRISHNA POKHAREL, YAROSLAV TROFIMOV, PETER WONACOTT The Wall Street Journal "India’s Great Leap Upward" That India’s economy is growing exponentially is well known. What The Wall Street Journal staff writers analyze is the impact of that growth story. Sudden strong demand for educated workers is breaking ancient caste barriers. Even Dalits, or untouchables, can now dream of the middle class life. The articles document the complexity of discrimination in rural India, the entrenched impunity of local corrupt legislators charged with fixing public education, and the new aspirations of the poorest as they clash with the powerful interests of the moneyed elite. How India’s democracy copes with both the demands of new wealth and worsening poverty for those left behind will keep the world watching keenly. CITATION Trudy Rubin Philadelphia Inquirer "Worldview"
3. THE ROBERT CAPA GOLD MEDAL AWARD Best published photographic reporting from abroad requiring exceptional courage and enterprise JOHN MOORE Getty Images "The Assassination of Benazir Bhutto" John Moore withstood the deadly chaos of a suicide bombing attack that killed Benazir Bhutto to record the last moments of the politician’s life. During the attack and the ensuing pandemonium, Moore courageously photographed the violence and shattered hopes of those looking toward the restoration of democracy in Pakistan. In the spirit of Robert Capa, Moore captured the frenzied moments of the assassination and its deadly aftermath to bear witness to a significant historical moment.
4. THE OLIVIER REBBOT AWARD Best photographic reporting from abroad in magazines or books CEDRIC GERBeHAYE Agence Vu – Newsweek "Congo in Limbo" Cédric Gerbehaye’s work opens a window on the deadliest place on earth, the Democratic Republic of Congo, where some 5 million people have died as a result of conflict since 1998. Rebels, foreign armed groups, and the Congolese army all have been responsible for murder, rape, and looting. His images of fear, exhaustion, and terrible resignation are tangible evidence of the peril that literally consumes people in the region. Through Gerbehaye’s eyes we see the singular faces of the smallest of children, abducted and robbed of their future by commanders seeking new "recruits" for war. A barefoot man stands in an overcoat in a puddle-ridden camp for the displaced. The image of renegade general Laurent Nkunda, at-large and wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity, is unforgettable, his bravado a symbol of the near total impunity with which those in power operate. CITATION Moises Saman Panos for Newsweek "Gang Warfare"
5. THE JOHN FABER AWARD Best photographic reporting from abroad in newspapers or wire services PAULA BRONSTEIN Getty Images "Death in Karachi" Paula Bronstein’s images focus on the victims of the attack on Benazir Bhutto in Karachi, Pakistan in October, 2008. They powerfully document human vulnerability in a world shattered by the now familiar deadly destruction of suicide bombing. CITATION Tyler Hicks The New York Times "Chasing the Taliban"
6. FEATURE PHOTOGRAPHY AWARD Best feature photography published in any medium on an international theme BRENT STIRTON Getty Images for Newsweek "Slaughter in the Jungle" Brent Stirton’s pictures record the killings of gorillas in the Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and are riveting visual documents of how the natural world has also suffered in a conflict that has claimed millions of human victims. CITATION Cheryl Diaz Meyer The Dallas Morning News "Self Immolation: Escape by Fire"
7. THE LOWELL THOMAS AWARD Best radio news or interpretation of international affairs Mary Kay Magistad, Jennifer Goren pictured right, Traci Tong PRI’s The World "Young China" The judges felt that this entry stood out for the depth and breadth of its reporting on a complex topic. A seven-part series on the effects of China’s one-child policy, it offers a comprehensive look at the impact on Chinese society as the 100 million people born since the implementation of the program start to come of age. Magistad and Goren move beyond the mere social impact of this social-engineering legislation to look at attitudes toward sex, religion and business. Making effective use of the opportunities offered by their medium, they offer a fascinating and educational look at the forces that not only have shaped modern China, but at those that will continue to do so.
8. THE DAVID KAPLAN AWARD Best TV spot news reporting from abroad TIM HETHERINGTON pictured right, SEBASTIAN JUNGER pictured left, BRIAN ROSS, STEVEN BAKER, MADELEINE SAUER, KAREN BRENNER ABC News — Nightline "The Other War" Spending time with the soldiers of Battle Company, 173rd U.S. Airborne, as they lived — and died — in the Korengal Valley in eastern Afghanistan, freelance photographer Tim Hetherington gives viewers a gutsy, poignant view of what American troops face in "The Other War." Hetherington and Junger traveled with a platoon of soldiers in one of the war’s most dangerous combat arenas. His camera work and his team’s elegant writing and editing provided a dramatic view of what the U.S. is facing in the struggle against the Taliban and foreign Jihadi militants. As Hetherington observed operation "Rock Avalanche," three U.S. soldiers died and eight were wounded in close combat. They also accompanied soldiers into the midst of angry villagers after an Apache helicopter attack killed Afghan civilians. Hetherington gives viewers a sense of the rarely seen enemy and the raw emotions of both civilians and soldiers. On one raid, Hetherington broke his ankle and had to walk four hours down a mountainside to reach safety. Their work displayed not only great personal courage but the power of great journalism. CITATION Jim Sciutto, Angus Hines, Tom Murphy "Inside Myanmar" ABC-World News Tonight
9. THE EDWARD R. MURROW AWARD Best TV interpretation or documentary on international affairs Maria Hinojosa pictured above with Indian storyteller, Amy Bucher, Sirin Aysan, Mary Olive Smith, Virginie Danglades, Lesley Norman NOW on PBS "Child Brides: Stolen Lives" Ambitious in a wholly different way than war or politics — and just as courageous — "Child Brides: Stolen Lives" does what the best international broadcast reporting is supposed to do: introduce us to a world we don’t know through vivid imagery, compelling storytelling, and smart analysis. With both rare access and undercover reporting, Maria Hinojosa, Amy Bucher and the team at NOW traveled to three continents to document the lives of girls "engaged" as young as 3 years old, often to far older men, examining the practice’s heart-rending consequences and the sometimes unlikely local leaders working to end it. Told with urgency, poignancy and objectivity, "Child Brides" is startling and important. CITATION Christiane Amanpour and CNN Productions Staff CNN Presents "God’s Warriors"
10. THE ED CUNNINGHAM AWARD Best magazine reporting from abroad ANDREA ELLIOTT The New York Times Magazine "Where Boys Grow Up to be Jihadis" Andrea Elliott spent weeks in a Moroccan town talking with friends, relatives and neighbors of five young men who left as Jihadi on suicide missions to Spain and Iraq. She records detailed accounts of their lives, despite initial suspicions and surveillance by Moroccan security forces. Her account, beautifully written, provides an unparalleled look into the making of terrorists and is a reporting tour de force. With great insight the reporter illustrates that terrorist motives are complex. Multiple forces are at work: the role of the mosques and their clergy, unemployment, limited opportunity and desire for revenge as an outgrowth of U.S. occupation of Iraq. CITATION Bryan Mealer Harper’s Magazine "The River is a Road"
11. THE THOMAS NAST AWARD Best cartoons on international affairs CLAY BENNETT The Christian Science Monitor The judges felt that Clay Bennett’s entire portfolio of work was extremely strong. The most arresting cartoon does what all great cartoons do: make you laugh and groan at the same time. It is of a plump, smiling frog, covered with four lipstick kisses, wearing a crown. The cartoon has no caption, and bears only one word, emblazoned on the frog’s crown: IRAQ. What an efficient, devastating, and clever way to describe the world’s desperate attempts to encourage Iraq — – and Iraqis — to turn into a prince. CITATION Mike Luckovich The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
12. THE MORTON FRANK AWARD Best business reporting from abroad in magazines PETER HESSLER pictured above right, MARK LEONG pictured above left, OLIVER PAYNE, ELIZABETH KRIST, DAVID WHITMORE, CHRIS JOHNS National Geographic "China’s Instant Cities" Hessler’s 19 months of reporting and 10 trips to the new Chinese city of Lishui culminated in an original approach to the China story, producing a fascinating, richly-textured account of the transformation underway there. By focusing on the creation of a small factory that produced just one product — plastic rings for making bras — Hessler’s selection of facts and anecdotes illuminated how ordinary Chinese people are trying to snare the riches up for grabs in this fast-growing economy. CITATIONS Roben Farzad BusinessWeek "Extreme Emerging Markets" Quentin Hardy Forbes "Hope & Profit in Africa"
13. THE MALCOLM FORBES AWARD Best business reporting from abroad in newspapers or wire services WALT BOGDANICH, JAKE HOOKER, ANDREW LEHREN, BRENT McDONALD, ROBERT HARRIS The New York Times "A Toxic Pipeline" This series was an extraordinary combination of traditional gumshoe investigating and high tech innovation that resulted in a compelling, thorough and dramatic body of work that was clearly ahead of the curve of not only other journalistic organizations, but the governments of China and the United States. This team created a journalistic tour de force — from the Dashiel Hammett-like work of Jake Hooker, who traveled under assumed names and kept his notes under his mattress, to the dogged work of Walt Bogdanich in uncovering classified FDA documents that warned of problems with diethylene glycol, to the computer-assisted study that showed as many as 1,300 unlicensed companies selling pharmaceuticals. The series is a primer on how to do investigative journalism. The team worked with videojournalists to document the tragic toll that these counterfeit drugs took on innocent people, making this a truly multi-media series. CITATION Michael Smith and Carlos Caminada Bloomberg News "Ethanol’s Deadly Brew"
14. THE CORNELIUS RYAN AWARD Best non-fiction book on international affairs BOB DROGIN Random House Curveball: Spies, Lies, and the Con Man Who Caused a War How did the U.S. get it so wrong about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Bob Drogin, national security and intelligence reporter for the Los Angeles Times, provides much of the answer in this anatomy of the CIA’s drive to prove the existence of chemical weapons in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. The central thread of Drogin’s narrative — the story of an Iraqi refugee with a dubious story about mobile germ labs — illustrates the White House’s grim determination to seize on any evidence, however flimsy, to justify the invasion. From there Drogin expands his cast of characters to include German spies, White House officialdom, the Iraqi resistance and the U.N. Along the way he uncovers a wealth of new detail about one of the worst intelligence failures in American history. CITATION Edward Luce Doubleday In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India
15. THE MADELINE DANE ROSS AWARD Best international reporting in the print medium showing a concern for the human condition LYDIA POLGREEN The New York Times "New Questions, New Answers in Africa" West African bureau chief Lydia Polgreen captures the geo-political dimensions and daily grind of the continent’s complex story and human drama as well as any reporter we have seen. Polgreen goes to all corners, known and far, near but remote. More often than not, she brings you there to taste the dust, hear the cries and even — in rare instances — share the triumphs. She gets to the essence of things with well-told stories about collapsing states and cultures. You can feel the anger as she gets to the sources responsible and puts the questions that have to be put. Polgreen discovers for us. She takes the return paths and the old paths, and brings new eyes to the old routes. And she confronts the villains and becomes the rod that expresses the questions those they oppress cannot fathom to ask except in their rare dreams of hope. CITATIONS Keith Epstein and Geri Smith BusinessWeek "The Ugly Side of Microlending" Daniel Michaels The Wall Street Journal "Nighmare in Nigeria"
16. THE CARL SPIELVOGEL AWARD Best international reporting in the broadcast media showing a concern for the human condition NEIL DOCHERTY, Lisa Ellenwood, David Fanning, Michael Sullivan WGBH-Boston/Frontline in co-production with CBC Documentary Unit "On Our Watch" Why did the world community allow the massacre of 200,000 Darfur Sudanese to go virtually unimpeded for four years? The reasons are vividly laid out in this masterful and compelling documentary. When United Nations intervention was forestalled by political ties between Sudan and China, it took grass-roots efforts by activists who threatened to rename the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games as the "Genocide Olympics" to finally break the diplomatic logjam. Each step in that process is reported here with exceptional journalism and dramatic cinematography. CITATIONS Robyn Kriel KWTX-TV — Waco, Texas "Zimbabwe Exposed" Scott Pelley, Shawn Efran, Jeff Fager, Solly Granatstein CBS News — 60 Minutes "The Killings in Haditha."
17. THE JOE and LAURIE DINE AWARD Best international reporting in any medium dealing with human rights JEFFREY GETTLEMAN pictured far right, COURTENAY MORRIS pictured left, SHAYLA HARRIS, ADAM ELLICK The New York Times "Ethiopia’s Hidden War" The New York Times produced groundbreaking, courageous reporting of atrocities being committed by the Ethiopian military in its campaign to suppress a separatist movement. The reporters’ insightful, powerful dispatches, produced at great personal risk, inspired readers in the developed world to care about distant places and people otherwise remote and invisible. CITATION Jane Mayer The New Yorker "The Black Sites"
18. THE WHITMAN BASSOW AWARD Best reporting in any medium on international environmental issues DAVID BARBOZA, KEITH BRADSHER, HOWARD FRENCH, JOSEPH KAHN, mark landler, JIM YARDLEY, JIMMY WANG The New York Times "Choking on Growth" "Choking on Growth" is a meticulously reported exposé of the worst environmental ills of unbridled economic expansion in China and the damaging consequences both for the Chinese people and the wider world. New York Times correspondents fanned out across China to research and report the story in a 10-part series that made the most of the publication’s online multimedia presence. Beautifully illustrated using compelling photography, videography and graphics, the series was aimed as much at a Chinese audience as at a U.S. domestic audience. Podcasts and transcripts of the series in Mandarin ensured a major impact for a story Chinese media are unable to report to the same degree. CITATION NPR News Staff National Public Radio "Climate Connections"
19. ROBERT SPIERS BENJAMIN AWARD Best reporting in any medium on Latin America THE MIAMI HERALD STAFF The Miami Herald "Coverage of the Venezuelan Referendum" Keenly aware that last December’s referendum to extend the powers of President Hugo Chavez would have repercussions far beyond Venezuela, The Miami Herald staff produced an eight-part series that helped readers appreciate the political and social context of the vote and to anticipate and absorb the stunning victory of the "No" vote. This series is an admirable blend of breaking news coverage, imaginative feature stories, and penetrating analysis of the complex reality of a society caught in the vortex of its leader’s headlong pursuit of "21st Century socialism." A stirring (and balanced) portrait of the two leftist student leaders of pro-and anti-Chavez camps is particularly noteworthy, as are the insider reports on dissension within the ranks of the Venezuelan military and the mixed feelings toward Chavez among the poor. Marshalling its formidable journalistic resources devoted to Latin America, the Herald (and its sister publication El Nuevo Herald) covered the election from every angle, burnishing their established reputation for thorough and compelling coverage of the region. CITATIONS Los Angeles Times Staff "The Drug Trail" Jose de Cordoba The Wall Street Journal "Guerillas in the Mist"
20. WEBSITE AWARD Best web coverage of international affairs DAMIEN CAVE pictured right, DIANA OLIVA CAVE pictured left, STEPHEN FARRELL, ARCHIE TSE, BAGHDAD BUREAU and VIDEO, GRAPHICS and MULTIMEDIA STAFF The New York Times "Assessing the Surge: A Survey of Baghdad Neighborhoods" In the midst of heated debate over the "surge" in Iraq by the American military, The New York Times, led by its Baghdad Bureau, created a comprehensive online guide to the sectarian violence plaguing various Baghdad neighborhoods. In reports that combined analysis, photo and video journalism, interactive maps and on-the-ground reporting, The Times brought clarity to an increasingly complicated story through the shifting realities in the Iraqi capital.
21. THE ARTYOM BOROVIK AWARD For outstanding reporting by a Russian journalist who displays courage, insight, and independence of thought ALEKSEI VENEDIKTOV, Ekho Moskvi "Radio Reports on Politics and Culture" Aleksei Venediktov is one of Russia’s best known journalists and a staunch defender of free speech. He serves as editor-in-chief of the national radio station Echo of Moscow (Ekho Moskvi), and as the host of several of its programs. The station is one of the few in Russia that provides independent news and openly criticizes government officials and policy. Venediktov can often be heard on the air, posing the hard questions that few others dare to ask. Ekho Moskvi as an organization and Venediktov as a person represent everything that Artyom Borovik stood for in his short life — courage, boldness and the importance of questioning authority. Venediktov’s Ekho Moskvi is and has always been one of the few shining points in the very dark world of Russian media. CITATION Yelena Yevgenyevna Penzina ORTV Krasnoyarsk "Prostitution and Corruption in Krasnoyarsk"