Print - The IWMF Announces 2019 Courage in Journalism Award Winners

Source: International Women's Media Foundation
July 09, 2019 09:30 ET

The IWMF Announces 2019 Courage in Journalism Award Winners

This year’s awards recognize women journalists in Nicaragua, South Sudan, Ukraine and the United Kingdom

Washington, DC, July 09, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --

The International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) today announced the recipients of its 29th annual Courage in Journalism Awards. This year’s winners include Ukrainian journalists Anna Babinets of SLIDSTVO.INFO and Nastya Stanko of Hromadske; Anna Nimiriano of The Juba Monitor; Nicaraguan journalist Lucía Pineda of 100% Noticias who was recently released from prison; and, Liz Sly, the Beirut bureau chief for The Washington Post. The IWMF’s Lifetime Achievement Award will go to the founders of the IWMF, marking the organization’s 30^th anniversary.

“Our winners this year are not only brilliant journalists holding governments to account, they are also fighting to prevent the suppression of a free press,” said the IWMF’s Executive Director Elisa Lees Muñoz. “We are honored to welcome these women into our network and celebrate their bravery and persistence.”

Babinets and Stanko, both based in Ukraine, have covered government corruption while combatting censorship by leading the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and the “Stop Censorship” movement, respectively. Nimiriano is the only female editor-in-chief in South Sudan, managing the leading daily newspaper. Pineda, of Nicaragua, was imprisoned from December 2018 to June 2019 on claims of ‘inciting violence,’ and is this year’s awardee who has been jailed or otherwise detained. Sly has covered war and unrest in Africa, Beijing and the Middle East for two decades, and been recognized with a Polk Award and a Daniel Pearl Award.

This year’s Lifetime Achievement Award, honoring the IWMF’s founders, recognizes a cadre of distinguished female journalists who galvanized in 1989 to strengthen the role of women in news media and recognize the contributions of women to the field worldwide. 30 years later, the IWMF honors these trailblazers from broadcast and print journalism who pioneered a way for women to break barriers. The reach, scope and value of the IWMF today would not have been possible without their influence.

The 2019 Courage in Journalism Award winners will be recognized in-person, along with the third annual recipient of the IWMF’s annual Gwen Ifill Award, at ceremonies in New York City and Washington, D.C. this fall. Bank of America is the National Presenting Sponsor for the 13th year.

About the 2019 Courage in Journalism Winners

Anna Nimiriano (South Sudan) Editor-in-chief, The Juba Monitor

The only female editor-in-chief in South Sudan, Nimiriano has been reporting for more than 15 years in one of the world’s most compromising countries for journalists. While working in Khartoum, Nimiriano was detained, attacked and routinely censored by the government. In 2016, she single-handedly re-opened The Juba Monitor and released her editor from prison. During this time of change, Nimiriano has increased the Monitor’s female staff from one to four journalists and is fighting to extend the paper’s circulation to Nairobi and Khartoum. The paper is currently being circulated in Kampala.

Read more of Anna’s story here.

Anna Babinets & Nastya Stanko (Ukraine) Investigative Journalist & Broadcast Journalist: @Anna_Babinets and @StankoNastya

Babinets and Stanko, both based in Ukraine, work to expose government corruption despite enduring threats and physical harm – all consequences of a physical and propaganda war that began in 2013 with the Maidan Revolution.

As the editor-in-chief and head of investigative journalism at the non-profit organization SLIDSTVO.INFO, Babinets produces stories on big crimes in Ukraine. She is also the editor of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. Stanko is a journalist who reports on the Russian-Ukrainian war, and member of the Ukrainian “Stop Censorship” movement; in 2013, she co-founded the independent media channel Hromadske, and is the deputy editor-in-chief.

Babinets was attacked by the government for months in 2016 for her investigation into presidential off-shore companies while Stanko was taken hostage and held captive in 2014 by Russian-backed separatists in Eastern Ukraine. Both women continue to seek the truth, exhibiting uncommon bravery in their pursuit of press freedom in Ukraine.

Read more of Anna’s story here and Nastya’s story here.

Liz Sly (United Kingdom) Beirut Bureau Chief, The Washington Post: @LizSly

Described as, “the dean of Middle Eastern correspondents,” Sly’s decades in journalism have rendered her fearless, despite constant government surveillance, immense personal risk and incessant surrounding violence. Since 2011 Sly has covered the war in Syria as the preeminent journalistic authority on the conflict and reported in-country more than a dozen times. Though nearly 130 journalists have been killed in Syria to-date, Sly persists to detail how the war impacts the lives of civilians.