The 6th annual European Journalism Institute will be held in July in Prague. Working journalists and journalism students are invited to apply for the program, which is organized by The Fund for American Studies. Visit the EJI Web site to learn more.

Roxana Saberi, the American journalist who spent four months in prison in Iran, returned to the U.S. on May 22. After being convicted on spying charges, Saberi was released on May 11 and spent a week recuperating in Vienna. Read the Washington Post article. Read an NPR interview with Saberi.

 

Agnes Taile, a recipient of a 2009 IWMF Courage in Journalism Award, is featured by Voice of America. The Cameroonian journalist has reported on human rights and corruption in her country. Read the VOA coverage.

The Premio Claudio Accardi is open to journalists whose work has helped others to understand the effects of war on civil societies. Applicants must be 35 years old or younger. The deadline for applications is Sept. 10. Read more or apply for the award.

by Lindsey Wray Agriculture stories “aren’t sexy enough.” That’s why Patrick Luganda thinks these stories are difficult to “sell” to editors and the...

Turkish journalist Ayse Onal, a 1996 recipient of an IWMF Courage in Journalism Award, is featured in Women’s ENews. Onal, who has reported on Turkish politics, organized crime and conflicts in the Middle East, has written a book and produced a documentary about honor killings. Read the Women’s ENews article.

Christiane Amanpour, chief international correspondent for CNN and an IWMF board member, gave the commencement address at Dickinson College May 17 in Pennsylvania. Amanpour also accepted an honorary doctorate in journalism on behalf of the International Women's Media Foundation. Read the Patriot-News article. Read the full text of Amanpour's speech.

Judy Woodruff, senior correspondent for The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer and an IWMF board member, spoke May 16 at Gettysburg College’s commencement ceremony in Pennsylvania. Woodruff spoke with her husband, Al Hunt, a managing editor of Bloomberg News. Both received honorary degrees from the college. Read more on Newswise.

David Hiller was named the new president and CEO of the McCormick Foundation, a nonprofit organization committed to strengthening free, democratic society. Hiller will replace retiring president in CEO David Grange in July. Hiller is the past publisher and CEO of the Los Angeles Times and previously held the same positions at the Chicago Tribune. Read more about Hiller and the McCormick Foundation.

A Belarusian journalist who is frequently detained and subjected to all-night interrogations by police, a Cameroonian radio journalist whose broadcasts on human rights and press freedom have put her life at risk and an Iranian journalist whose reports about sensitive social and political issues have led to multiple arrests are recipients of this year’s Courage in Journalism Awards from the International Women’s Media Foundation.

The 2009 Courage Award recipients are:

• Iryna Khalip, reporter and editor in the Minsk bureau of Novaya Gazeta.
• Agnes Taile, reporter for Canal 2 International, radio and television, Cameroon.
• Jila Baniyaghoob, freelance reporter and editor-in-chief of the website Kanoon Zanan Irani (Focus on Iranian Women), Iran.

The winner of the 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award is Amira Hass, a reporter and columnist for Ha’aretz Daily, a newspaper based in Tel Aviv.

Read the press release.
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The awards will be presented at ceremonies in New York on October 20 and in Los Angeles on October 28. Join us in honoring the courage of this year's winners – tickets are now available.

Read the Associated Press article.

For immediate releaseMay 18, 2009En españolEn françaisпо-русски For more information:Lindsey Wray(202) 496-1992LWray@iwmf.org Washington, D.C. – A B...

Euna Lee and Laura Ling, American journalists who have been detained in North Korea since March, will be put on trial in early June. The journalists have been accused of illegal entry and "hostile acts," which in North Korea are punishable by five to 10 years in a labor camp. Read the Washington Post article. Sign the IWMF petition for their release.

Regional reporters in dangerous countries lack the support networks and prominence of journalists from larger cities, and this makes them vulnerable to self censorship, says Jenny Manrique, a journalist who reported from provincial regions of Colombia and who is the 2008-2009 IWMF Elizabeth Nueffer Fellow.

“In the provinces … the violence never goes away. Deaths are daily. Sometimes those corpses have the name of your friends, your sources, your colleagues,” she says. In addition, threats to sources and family are even harder to endure than those against a journalist’s personal safety. “Armed groups know who your family is, where you live, your daily routine,” she says. Click here to read more.

• Read articles in The New York Times by Jenny Manrique on an immigrant family and immigrants seeking asylum.
• Learn about the IWMF Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship.

When Serbian national forces began their attack on Sarajevo in 1992, Gordana Knezevic was deputy editor of the newspaper Oslobodjenje. For the next three-and-a-half years, she worked with editor-in-chief Kemal Kurspahic to keep publishing the newspaper. Six staff members were killed and 10 were wounded, but the paper was published without missing a day. Knezevic and Kurspahic won Courage in Journalism Awards from the International Women’s Media Foundation in 1992.

Amira Hass, a correspondent for Haaretz newspaper, was arrested by Israeli police when she attempted to leave the Gaza Strip on May 12. Hass, who had been living in and reporting from Gaza in the last few months, was taken in for questioning immediately after crossing the border for violating a law that forbids residence in an enemy state. She was released on bail after promising not to enter the Gaza Strip over the next 30 days. Read more in Haaretz.