Cash prize

The two winners receive their awards, including a US $5,000 cash prize each, at a ceremony, originally held in New York. The first awards were launched in 2001, after Kurt’s family, friends and colleagues set up the Fund with help from Reuters. But since 2006 the ceremony has been held in London each November. Their work is celebrated in front of an invited audience drawn from international media and influential bodies concerned with promoting social justice, democracy and global dialogue. The evening features a panel discussion on an important issue current for the year. Institute for War & Peace Reporting has been administering the Awards since 2006.

Text 5. Winners of the 2011 Kurt Schork Awards in International Journalism

Jerome Starkey (UK) - Freelance category; Gertrude Pswarayi (Zimbabwe) - Local journalist category

British journalist Jerome Starkey is the 2011 winner in the category of freelance journalists covering foreign news. The winner in the local reporter category is Gertrude Fadziso Pswarayi. In presenting the awards, judges noted that Starkey had clearly taken high personal risks in his coverage of Afghanistan and Libya. Pswarayi wrote about raped and exploited women in Zimbabwe, a country with “zero tolerance for the journalism of revelation”, the judges noted.

(to reveal = to make (something) known: ▪ She would not reveal the secret. ▪ The test revealed the true cause of death. ▪ It was revealed that they stole over $1 million. ▪ They revealed the plans for the new building; revelation = an act of making something known; an act of revealing something in usually a surprising way:▪ Revelations by the newspaper caused a scandal. ▪ His outburst was a revelation of his true character. ▪ The revelation of her gambling problem followed her bankruptcy.

Starkey and Pswarayi were chosen from almost 90 submitted reports from journalists from around the world. Winners in each category will receive a $5,000 (US) monetary award at a presentation ceremony in London on November 17.

A bout the Winners

Jerome Starkey - 2011 Winner, Freelance journalist category

Starkey won for two reports from Afghanistan and one from Libya. A story from Helmand province published in The Times (UK) described a mine blast (=explosion) that caused a British soldier’s death; another published in The Scotsman told of the consequences of a Taleban roadside bombing. Starkey’s third story, also in The Times, recorded his experiences aboard a small boat taking provisions to rebels in Misrata, Libya, and what he found on arrival.

The judges’ full citation reads: “In his reports from Afghanistan and Libya, Jerome Starkey has shown a tremendous amount of initiative and readiness to engage in difficult action. Writing very well and very clearly, he tells you what you want to know about the experiences of those caught up in conflicts – and has taken high risks to get his stories.” 

Biography: Jerome Starkey, 30, left City University, London in 2004 with a post-graduate diploma in newspaper journalism. He worked for The Sun (UK) until 2006 when he began freelancing in Afghanistan, becoming The Times’ stringer (stringer =a journalist who is not on the regular staff of a newspaper but who writes stories for that newspaper) there in 2009. He has also covered Iraq for The Sun and Libya for The Times and The Scotsman.

G ertrude Pswarayi - 2011 Winner, Local journalist category

Pswarayi is co-founder and director of the Creative Centre for Communication and Development in Zimbabwe, a non-governmental organisation that works to give marginalised groups a voice ( to maginalise = to put or keep (someone) in a powerless or unimportant position within a society or group; ▪ We are protesting policies that marginalize women. [=that do not allow women to have important or powerful positions in a society] ▪ The program helps people from marginalized groups/populations). She writes regularly for World Pulse and for the Global Press Institute (GPI), published online. Her powerful article about political survivors coming forward to tell their stories ahead of the Zimbabwean elections captured the judges’ attention.

“We applaud her bravery in telling the disturbing stories of raped and exploited women in Zimbabwe,” reads her citation from the judging panel. “Just when you feel that you can neither read, nor watch/listen to anything more about Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, you must accept what Gertrude has told us.”

Biography: Gertrude Pswarayi, 29, has a Bachelor of Science Honours Degree in Journalism and Media Studies. She began writing business news as an intern at the Sunday Mail in Harare, Zimbabwe in 2003, later moving into media/public relations and communications for local NGOs. She has been a citizen journalist, online, for World Pulse since February 2009 and is a senior reporter on the Zimbabwe desk of the Global Press Institute, as well as a director of the NGO Creative Centre for Communication and Development, Bulawayo.

Honourable awards to several other entrants

Local Reporter Category:

• Humberto Padgett (Mexico) for risky research and well-told stories about the consequences of drug-addicted criminality and gang violence in Mexico;

• Vinod Jose (India) for first-class journalism, with well-planned and written stories about a Indo-US espionage mission and an aging leader clinging to power (to cling = to try very hard to keep something that you are in danger of losing);

• Ayodeji Adeyemi (Nigeria) for a “powerful” and “impressive” study on the dehumanising impact of oil exploration on the people of the Niger Delta, involving risky and difficult reporting.

Freelance Journalist Category:

• Jean Friedman-Rudovsky (USA), reporting in Mexico and Bolivia, for “wonderful story-telling, fluid writing, painstaking research (painstaking = showing or done with great care and effort:▪ painstaking work/research), value-added context, and a passionate attitude to injustices”;

• Tristan McConnell (UK/South Africa) for a well-written and structured story about a Hell’s Angel on a mission to save Africa’s forgotten children.