In a 2000 speech, CNN chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour said she was depressed that too many media editors and producers killed stories reporters had risked their lives to get in order to use soft news features, which she referred to as “killer twinkies.”

Chris Anyanwu is doing what she dreamed of doing while imprisoned for three years under Nigeria’s late military ruler, Sani Abacha. She’s building her own media complex in now-democratic Nigeria.

Ayse Onal still has a powerful voice on all things Turkish and, since winning the IWMF's Courage in Journalism Award in 1996, has won several other national and international awards.

Corinne Dufka quit journalism at the top of her game. In just over a decade, she had won many major prizes, including the 1997 IWMF Courage in Journalism Award, for her dramatic photographs, taken during 17 different conflicts from Central America to the Balkans. Today, Dufka is West Africa team leader for Human Rights Watch, overseeing their work in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Boston Globe reporter Elizabeth Neuffer won the IWMF Courage in Journalism Award for her coverage of the genocide in Rwanda and the war in Bosnia.

Aferdita Kelmendi not only is making Radio/TV 21 a major broadcast force in Kosovo, but is training her journalists to use conflict resolution techniques to help rank and file Kosovars grapple with the problems before them.

 

The year 2000 was difficult, both personally and professionally, for pioneering editor Zamira Sydykova of Res Publica in Kyrgyzstan. She was demoralized by her battle with government authorities, who had jailed her twice since 1992 in retaliation for her stories, and she was being forced to repeatedly defend her newspaper against libel suits aimed at silencing her. She had even toyed with the idea of giving up journalism and finding a new career.

Winning the IWMF Courage in Journalism Award in 2001 convinced Jineth Bedoya Lima that she could stay in Colombia, one of the few countries in the world where warring factions routinely target journalists for murder as part of their combat strategy.

Sandra Nyaira won the IWMF Courage in Journalism Award in 2002 in recognition of her cutting-edge stories about corruption and the chaotic politics in Zimbabwe, where she was political editor of The Daily News, a leading independent newspaper.

Marielos Monzon returned to Guatemala after receiving a 2003 IWMF Courage in Journalism Award determined to redouble her efforts to find an outlet for a radio program focusing on human rights

Syndicated columnist Molly Ivins makes a living out of poking fun at politicians. But she’s dead serious in her mission, “writing about politics so people know how important it is, how funny it is.”

Covering a war, “you could never survive if you only use your brain. It’s important but not as important as your feelings,” says Associated Press photographer Anja Niedringhaus.

 

Sherkat founded Zanan because she felt mainstream journalism was ignoring serious coverage of women’s rights in Iran. It was the first independent journal to focus on women’s issues after the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

When Sumi Khan first tried to get a job covering crime stories in 1991, the men in the newsroom laughed at her. ”They thought a woman as crime reporter would never work out,” she says. No woman in Bangladesh had ever held the job.

Anyone involved in journalism is either in love or crazy, said Shahla Sherkat, winner of a 2005 Courage in Journalism Award from the International Women's Media Foundation.