Top, left to right: Gregory Warner, Laura Heaton, Marianne McCune. Bottom, left to right, Michael May and Jess Jiang.
Best radio, audio or podcast news or interpretation of international affairs
AWARD DATE: 2017
AWARD NAME: 06 The Lowell Thomas Award
AWARD RECIPIENT: Gregory Warner, Laura Heaton, Marianne McCune, Michael May and Jess Jiang
AWARD RECIPIENT AFFILIATION: NPR
AWARD HONORED WORK: “The Congo We Listen To,” an episode of the Rough Translation podcast
AWARD SPONSOR: Deborah Amos
At the heart of good journalism is an honest reckoning with how we know what we know, and what more we need to know. Such was the case with the NPR podcast Rough Translations’ episode: “The Congo We Listen To.” It featured Laura Heaton, a freelance reporter who decided to revisit the 2010 story of mass rape by militia groups in a Congolese village, wanting to know whether that brief period of saturated international media attention had a lasting impact on the village and its women. What she found was that the real story was different from what had been reported, and she worked to find out why village women had chosen to hide the full story. Heaton, with Rough Translation host Gregory Warner, produced a complex and compelling tale about what stories are told, what stories are hidden, and how journalists with good instincts, time and patience, can find a much richer story by listening for what hasn’t been said.
Citation Recipients: Marlon Bishop, Maria Hinojosa, Nadia Reiman and Stephanie Lebow
Affiliation: Latino USA
Honored Work: “A Border Drawn in Blood”