77th Annual Overseas Press Club Awards

Contact: Tamara Boorstein

(347) 628-8983 or tboorstein@opcofamerica.org

77th OPC Awards Recognize International Reporting Excellence Amid More Hostile Climate for Journalists; Winners Cited For Stories On Slave Labor, Refugees, ISIS and Corruption

David Fanning, Founder and Former Executive Producer of PBS Investigative Series FRONTLINE Receives President’s Award;

Jason Rezaian, Former Tehran Bureau Chief of The Washington Post Lights Press Freedom Candle in Memory of journalists Killed, Imprisoned or Missing in Action

NEW YORK, April 28, 2016 — The 22 award-winning entries for the annual Overseas Press Club (OPC) Awards highlight the increasing hazards facing foreign correspondents around the world. The Associated Press, the Center for Public Integrity Foreign Policy, FRONTLINE, Reuters and The New York Times won multiple awards; The Associated Press won two awards for its story, “Seafood from Slaves.”

While the award-winning stories reflect themes of conflict, corruption and disaster, they also show how, in a hyper-connected world, these dangers spill over and quickly present global perils. Journalists covering these events now face a more hazardous climate with a growing number of limitations to free speech across the globe.

“Our jobs have become more dangerous and harder to come as our profession faces economic and technological change,” says Marcus Mabry, president of the Overseas Press Club of America and the managing editor of Twitter Moments. “We gather tonight not to bemoan this reality, but to confront it. Our role as journalists is to bear witness, and ensure that suffering is not in silence, injustice is not unknown.”

As part of confronting this new reality, the OPC joined last year with the Frontline Freelance Register, Reporters Without Borders, the Committee to Protect Journalists, DART, other advocacy groups and 90 news organizations to sign the Global Safety Principles and Practices for protecting freelancers in dangerous overseas assignments.

Kai Ryssdal, host and senior editor of American Public Radio’s Marketplace,” will emcee the awards night, with the OPC honoring David Fanning, founder and executive producer at large of FRONTLINE, with the President’s Award. Jason Rezaian, journalist and former Tehran bureau chief for The Washington Post, who was released from Iran in January after more than 18 months in jail, will light the press freedom candle in memory of journalists who have died in the line of duty in the past year and in honor of those imprisoned or missing.

Bassam Khabieh, international photojournalist with Reuters, will receive The Robert Capa Gold Medal Award, which honors the best photographic reporting from abroad requiring exceptional courage and enterprise. Mr. Khabieh is being honored for “Field Hospital Damascus,” with images that put into perspective the tremendous danger and difficulties facing journalists in Syria today.

There were 486 entries in this year’s competition.

The OPC Awards will be live-streamed. Please follow us on Twitter @opcofamerica and tweet using #OPCAwards. Detailed information and photographs will be posted on the OPC website at www.opcofamerica.org. Contact patricia@opcofamerica.org or (212) 626-9220 if you wish to cover the award presentations in person.

AWARDS:

Newspapers, News Services, Magazines or Online

THE HAL BOYLE AWARD

Best newspaper, news service or online reporting from abroad

Martha Mendoza, Margie Mason, Robin McDowell, Esther Htusan, The Associated Press

Seafood from Slaves

THE BOB CONSIDINE AWARD

Best newspaper, news service or online interpretation of international affairs Reuters Team, Reuters

The Long Arm of China

THE MALCOLM FORBES AWARD

Best international business news reporting in newspapers, news services or online

Martha Mendoza, Esther Htusan, Margie Mason, Robin McDowell, The Associated Press

Seafood from Slaves

THE MADELINE DANE ROSS AWARD

Best international reporting in the print medium or online showing a concern for the human condition

Patrick McDonnell, Christopher Goffard, Laura King, Kate Linthicum and Henry Chu

Los Angeles Times

Fleeing Syria

THE WHITMAN BASSOW AWARD

Best reporting in any medium on international environmental issues

The Center for Public Integrity/International Consortium of Investigative Journalists /The Huffington Post

Evicted and Abandoned: The World Bank’s Broken Promise to the Poor

THE ROBERT SPIERS BENJAMIN AWARD

Best reporting in any medium on Latin America

Eduardo Castillo, Christopher Sherman and Dario Lopez-Mills

The Associated Press

Thousands of Mexican Families Mourn the ‘Other Disappeared’”

BEST INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING

Best investigative reporting in any medium on an international story

Erika Solomon, Sam Jones, Ahmad Mhidi and Guy Chazan, Financial Times

Isis Inc.

BEST COMMENTARY

Best commentary on international news in any medium

Mark Lilla, The New York Review of Books

On France

THE ED CUNNINGHAM AWARD

Best magazine reporting in print or online on an international story

Tristan McConnell, Foreign Policy

Close Your Eyes and Pretend to Be Dead”

THE MORTON FRANK AWARD

Best magazine international business news reporting in print or online

Christina Larson, Foreign Policy

The Zhao Method

THE JOE and LAURIE DINE AWARD

Best international reporting in any medium dealing with human rights

David Rohde and Charles Levinson, Reuters

Guantanamo Bay

Photography

THE ROBERT CAPA GOLD MEDAL AWARD

Best published photographic reporting from abroad requiring exceptional courage, enterprise

Bassam Khabieh, Reuters

Field Hospital Damascus

THE OLIVIER REBBOT AWARD

Best photographic reporting from abroad in magazines or books

Stephen Dupont, Steidl

Generation AK: The Afghanistan Wars, 1993-2012

THE JOHN FABER AWARD

Best photographic reporting from abroad in newspapers or news services

Mauricio Lima, Sergey Ponomarev, Tyler Hicks and Daniel Etter, The New York Times

Exodus

FEATURE PHOTOGRAPHY AWARD

Best feature photography published in any medium on an international theme

Daniel Berehulak, The New York Times

High in the Himalayas, A Search After the Nepal Quake Yields Grim Results

TV and Radio

THE LOWELL THOMAS AWARD

Best radio or audio news or interpretation of international affairs

Molly Webster, Jad Abumrad, Soren Wheeler, Dylan Keefe, Maya Kosover, Yochai Maital

RadIolab/WNYC

Birthstory

THE DAVID KAPLAN AWARD

Best TV or video spot news reporting from abroad

Emiland Guillerme, Ben Laffin, Spencer Wolff, Deborah Acosta, Yousur Al-Hlou, Pamela Druckerman, Stefania Rousselle, Ben C. Solomon, Leslye Davis, Taige Jensen, Quyn Do, Adam B. Ellick, Steve Duenes

The New York Times

Paris

THE EDWARD R. MURROW AWARD

Best TV or video interpretation or documentary on international affairs

Jamie Doran, Najibullah Quraishi, Raney Aronson,

PBS Investigative Series FRONTLINE

Isis in Afghanistan

THE DAVID A. ANDELMAN and PAMELA TITLE AWARD

Best international reporting in the broadcast media showing a concern for the human condition

Evan Williams, Edward Watts, Raney Aronson

PBS Investigative Series FRONTLINE

Escaping Isis

Book

THE CORNELIUS RYAN AWARD

Best non-fiction book on international affairs

Tom Burgis, PublicAffairs

The Looting Machine: Warlords, Oligarchs, Corporations, Smugglers, and the Theft of Africa’s Wealth

Cartoon

THE THOMAS NAST AWARD

Best cartoons on international affairs

Patrick Chappatte, The New York Times

Multimedia

BEST MULTIMEDIA NEWS PRESENTATION

Best use of video, interactive graphics and slideshows to report on international news

Eleanor Bell, Will Fitzgibbon, Chris Zubak-Skees

The Center for Public Integrity/International Consortium of Investigative Journalists/Pulitzer Center

Fatal Extraction: Australian Mining in Africa

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About the Overseas Press Club of America

The Overseas Press Club of America was founded in 1939 in New York City by a group of foreign correspondents. The OPC seeks to maintain an international association of journalists working in the United States and abroad; to encourage the highest standards of professional integrity and skill in the reporting of news; to help educate a new generation of journalists; to contribute to the freedom and independence of journalists and the press throughout the world, and to work toward better communication and understanding among people.