People Column
OPC SCHOLARS
Congratulations to two Emanuel R. Freedman Scholarship winners saw their work recognized at the OPC Awards Dinner this year. The Panama Papers project, overseen by 2005 winner Marina Walker Guevara of the International of the Consortium of Investigative Journalism, claimed the Malcolm Forbes Award. The project also snagged the Pulitzer for Explanatory Reporting. Ben Taub, who was a Scholar just two years ago in 2015, was honored by the OPC with the Best Investigative Reporting Award for detailing evidence of war crimes by the Syrian government based on more than 600,000 pages of leaked documents. Ben Hubbard, who won the Stan Swinton Scholarship in 2007, shared a Hal Boyle Award citation with colleagues from The New York Times.
Emily Steel, who won the David R. Schweisberg Memorial Scholarship in 2005, co-wrote the New York Times story that led to the ouster of longtime Fox News host Bill O’Reilly. It wasn’t the media reporter’s first clash with iconic broadcaster; two years ago, after she investigated his exaggerated claims about his Falklands War coverage, he told Steel, “I am coming after you with everything I have.” Nevertheless, she persisted in detailing multiple allegations of sexual harassment against O’Reilly in a story that landed in early April. Fox forced out him soon after.
The 2016 Fritz Beebe Fellow, Dake Kang, is joining the Associated Press in Cleveland. Kang will spend eight months covering Ohio and Western Pennsylvania. He spent his fellowship period with the AP in Bangkok, where he reported on human rights issues and illegal fishing, among other issues.
Russell Midori, who won the Nathan S. Bienstock Memorial Scholarship in 2016, just joined CBS News as an Associate Producer. He will be based in the documentary unit, field producing mostly international pieces. His previous positions include metro news stringer for The New York Times, production assistant for the HBO news documentary series VICE and spokesman for the U.S. Marine Corps.
Mark Anderson, the Emanuel R. Freedman Scholarship winner in 2014, has moved from Business Editor to Nairobi Bureau Chief at The Africa Report. He will coordinate the magazine’s coverage of East Africa and the Horn. Anderson has previously covered global development for the Guardian in London and written for Africa Confidential.
AWARDS
OPC member Martin Smith and FRONTLINE have won a Peabody Award for Confronting ISIS, which traveled to five countries to examine the difficulties the U.S. faces in its effort to eradicate the Islamist organization. “Veteran correspondent Martin Smith’s deliberate reporting provides context to America’s ongoing war against Islamist extremists in this essential primer on the origins and timeline of the conflict,” said the judges. FRONTLINE won a second Peabody for Exodus, a film about the refugee crisis.
Former OPC Governor and multiple OPC Award winner Harry Benson received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the International Center of Photography’s Infinity Awards on April 24. The ICP notes that Benson “marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during the civil rights movement; photographed the Watts Riots; was embedded in the Gulf War; was next to Robert Kennedy when he was assassinated; and has photographed the last 12 U.S. presidents from President Eisenhower to President-Elect Trump.”
Daniel Berehulak’s chilling reportage of extrajudicial killings in the Philippines, which won the OPC’s Olivier Rebbot Award in April, has also been honored with the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography. In addition, Berehulak recently received the McGill Medal for Journalistic Courage for his lifetime body of work. A freelancer and regular contributor to The New York Times, Berehulak lives in Mexico City.
Everyday Mumbai, the Instagram account launched in 2014 by OPC member Chirag Wakaskar, has won a 2017 Social Media for Empowerment Award. The prize in the Citizen Media & Journalism category recognized Everyday Mumbai for creating a crowdsourced photography community that aims to be a “democratic and collective voice of the photographers who document the city, its issues, its life and its people.” Everyday Mumbai has over a million followers on the photo-driven social media platform.
UPDATES
NEW YORK: OPC member and legendary broadcaster Dan Rather is making a splash in a new medium: Facebook. As Politico’s Michael Kruse wrote in a glowing profile recently, Rather has two million Facebook fans and his multimedia production company, News and Guts, has another million. “On average,‘News and Guts’ gets more likes, comments and shares per post than BuzzFeed, USA Today or CNN,” writes Kruse, who goes on to dub Rather one of “the leading voices of the Trump resistance.”
Time Inc. is no longer for sale. After evaluating expressions of interest from potential buyers, the company announced in late April that it would pursue its own strategic plan instead. According to The New York Times, chief executive Rich Battista is “eager to continue transforming Time Inc. from a print publisher to a multimedia company.” Time Inc. publishes more than 100 magazines, including Time. Sports Illustrated, Travel + Leisure, Food & Wine, Fortune and People.
For the first time, the International Olympic Committee has added human rights principles to its Host City Contract — a move Human Rights Watch and other groups have long pushed for. “Time after time, Olympic hosts have gotten away with abusing workers building stadiums, and with crushing critics and media who try to report about abuses,” OPC Associate Board member Minky Worden, HRW’s director of global initiatives, said in a statement “The right to host the Olympics needs to come with the responsibility not to abuse basic human rights.” The language will first take effect for the 2024 Summer Olympics
PHILADELPHIA: ISIS is losing ground, but it is not demoralized, OPC Governor Rukmini Callimachi told Terry Gross of NPR’s Fresh Air in March. “I don’t see any evidence of ISIS backing down,” Callimachi said. “They’re fighting tooth and nail for this territory. And they’re doing it through numerous innovations,” including a highly developed network of tunnels and the use of drones to identify enemy positions and drop explosives. Callimachi had just returned from the front line in Mosul, where she was embedded with Iraqi troops.
WASHINGTON, DC: Foreign correspondents should always defer to local knowledge when reporting on events abroad, OPC Governor Hannah Allam told students at a panel discussion on “Women in Conflict” co-hosted by American University’s School of Communication and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. “Their word must be the final word,” said Allam, adding that freelancers must credit local journalists for their work. Allam is a former Baghdad and Cairo bureau chief for McClatchy Newspapers. She now covers Muslim life in the U.S. at BuzzFeed.
LONDON: The Atlantic is establishing its first overseas bureau, sending veteran correspondent James Fallows to London to “bring Atlantic-quality journalism to a global audience in a very deliberate way,” according to editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg. The 10-person office will include writers and editors as well as sales, marketing, events and communications staff. The magazine says it increased its newsstand sales by 19 percent in 2016 and has seen total revenues grow at a double-digit pace for the last three years.
PEOPLE REMEMBERED
Rupert Cornwell, who spent more than four decades as a foreign correspondent in Europe, the Soviet Union and the U.S., died at age 71 on March 31 in Washington, DC. Cornwell joined the London-based Independent when it launched in 1986. Before that, he spent 14 years with the Financial Times. “Rupert was as humble as he was brilliant, his peerless range extending far beyond the politics of Moscow or Washington, to boxing, ballet and baseball,” said Independent editor Christian Broughton, as quoted by the paper. Cornwell published his final story just 11 days before his death, despite undergoing treatment for cancer.
Lifelong Associated Press correspondent, editor and columnist George Bria died on March 18 in New York City. He was 101. In his early years, reporting from Europe, Bria covered the execution of Mussolini, the German surrender in Italy and the Nuremberg war crimes trials. Later he became a senior editor on the foreign desk in New York. “George was a great editor,” recalled Victor L. Simpson, who served as AP bureau chief in Rome for more than three decades. “He taught me to read my copy out loud.” Bria retired in 1981 but went on to write gardening columns for the wire service for more than a decade.