Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism 2008
on 19 May 2008
Freelance journalists
Dahr Jamail and
Mohammed Omer share the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism 2008. There's more on the
press release,
Dahr Jamail’s unembedded reporting from Iraq, Lebanon and Syria has allowed us to understand the conflict in the Middle East not from a “Western†point of view (although he himself is American), but from “the ground upâ€, as Martha Gellhorn wrote. His expose of the siege of Fallujah in Iraq is a beacon of modern war reporting.
Mohammed Omer is a young Palestinian journalist, a native of Gaza, where his own home and family are constantly under siege. He has become quite literally the voice of the voiceless and his dispatches from within an “open prison†represent a profoundly humane record of the injustice imposed on a community forgotten by much of the world. via al-falasteenyia
And
The Guardian quotes Joh PIlger who acts as one of the judges,
"When we sit down to judge it, we try to think how Martha would judge it," he added. "We know her work intimately, we know her journalism and her books. That's why when we consider the prize winner, we consider they should have reported unpalatable truths substantiated by powerful facts." link
The prize drew a record number of entries from Britain and abroad. The winners will share £5,000 and will be presented with their awards at the
British Academy of Television Arts (BAFTA) in London, on 16th June.
