* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The finalists in the 2015 Kurt Schork Memorial Fund Awards in International Journalism are:
Freelance category
Alex Perry (UK)
Rania Abouzeid (Lebanon/Australia)
Ty McCormick (USA))
Tristan McConnell (UK)
Sandra Weiss (Germany)
Anjan Sundaram (France)
Tom Parfitt (UK)
Clair McDougall (Australia)
Local Reporter category
Soma Basu (India)
Mai Shams El-Din (Egypt)
Ismail Alexandrani (Egypt)
Shaila Rosagel (Mexico)
Ekaterina Sergatskova (Ukraine)
Anton Vodianyi (Ukraine)
Camini Marajh (Trinidad & Tobago)
Ashutosh Bhardwaj (India)
Stories – in print and online – covering events from the Middle East and Ukraine dominate this year’s shortlists. Each entrant had to submit three articles published between June 1, 2014 and May 31, 2015. The 2015 awards attracted 148 entries – 66 Freelance and 82 Local Reporter – from 56 countries.
Articles published by Newsweek, National Geographic, Politico, the New Yorker, Foreign Policy magazine, The Washington Post, Medium, GlobalPost, Milenio Dominical (Mexico), IPG-Journal (Germany), Granta magazine, The Telegraph magazine and the Daily Telegraph are represented in the Freelance Journalist category.
The Local Reporter category finalists were published by Down to Earth (India), Mada Masr and El-Badil (Egypt), Al-Modon (Lebanon), Le Monde Diplomatique (France), Sin Embargo (Mexico), Focus, Esquire and The Insider (Ukraine), Sunday Express (Trinidad & Tobago) and The Indian Express.
The winner in each category will be announced in September with the Awards' Ceremony to follow hosted by the Thomson Reuters Foundation in the Thomson Reuters Auditorium, Canary Wharf, London, on Thursday evening, October 29, 2015.
The judges for these, the 14th annual awards, are Lyse Doucet, the BBC’s Chief Foreign Correspondent, Robert Fisk, Middle East correspondent of The Independent, UK; Sean Maguire, Head of News and Campaigns, Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, UK and former Global Editor, Politics and International Affairs at Reuters and freelance journalist and author Anna Husarska.
Established in 2002, the $US5,000 awards honour American freelance journalist Kurt Schork, who was killed in 2000 while on assignment for Reuters in Sierra Leone. The awards recognize the work of reporters who seek to illuminate the human condition through courageous reporting of conflict, corruption, human rights transgressions and other key issues.
The annual awards are in two categories: the first recognises the often unacknowledged work of local reporters in developing nations or countries in transition who write about events in their homeland. The second is for freelance journalists who travel to the world’s news hotspots, often at great personal risk and little protection, to witness and report the impact and consequences of major events.
The Kurt Schork Memorial Fund Awards in International Journalism’s website: www.ksmfund.org
News release queries: enquiries@ksmfund.org
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
