 "This award confirms that my belief was right"
Drago Hedl
I am particularly delighted to receive this prestigious journalism award tonight. However, this is an unusual occasion for me. Although I have been in the journalism business for more than 25 years, I am not used to awards. Instead of receiving honors, I am more used to defending myself in court. Instead of wonderful speeches about my work as I have heard tonight, I am more used to threats, even death threats. Instead of seeing my name on the list of the award winners, I am used to seeing it in secret police files classified as the 'enemy of the state.’ This is why tonight’s event is such an uncommon and unusual one for me. Read Hedl's remarks >
 "My work is in Baghdad"
Shadha al-Jubori
Ladies and gentlemen, with the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in April 2003, journalism in Iraq has entered a new era of freedom and liberty after long years of dictatorship and oppression. However, we Iraqi journalists are now paying a high price for our freedom.
Over these hard years I have lost so many of my friends and colleagues. They were either killed, threatened or went abroad to save their lives. Every time I lose one of them I ask myself: Shadha are you going to continue? And each time I get the same answer which is: Do I have other choice? I think it’s my fate to be an Iraqi journalist. Read more>
 "Our governments do not yet accept a free media and thus respect their citizens’ right for a voice"
Bagila Bukharbayeva
I chose to become a journalist during Gorbachev’s “perestroika” and “glasnost” years, when the Soviet media suddenly obtained a free voice. I saw how the country was changing; I felt it was becoming easier to breathe.
That media transformation heralded the collapse of the totalitarian Soviet state. However, splinters of that system have survived to this day in Central Asia.
I hope to write a story one day that will tell the world that Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan have held their first free elections. That stability has returned to Kyrgyzstan. That dissidents languishing in Uzbek and Turkmen jails have been freed. That all the victims of the Andijan massacre have been counted, named and paid last respects to. Read more>
Dinner Program:
MASTER OF CEREMONIES
George Stephanopoulos
Anchor and Chief Washington Correspondent of ABC News
Read more>
GUEST SPEAKER
Fareed Zakaria
Editor of Newsweek International
Read more>
ICFJ FOUNDERS’ AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN JOURNALISM
Bob Schieffer
Anchor of CBS Evening News and Face the Nation
KNIGHT INTERNATIONAL JOURNALISM AWARDS
Presented by Alberto Ibargüen, President and CEO, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
Shadha al-Jubori
Chief correspondent for BBC Radio, Iraq
Drago Hedl
Editor of the Feral Tribune, a weekly political newspaper, Croatia
Read more>
PAUL KLEBNIKOV PRIZE FOR COURAGE IN JOURNALISM
Bagila Bukharbayeva
Correspondent for the Associated Press, Kazakhstan
Biography>
Read more about the award>
This evening is made possible through the generous support of Bank of America, CBS News, Pamela Howard, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and Merrill Lynch.
   
Sponsoring a table at the International Center for Journalists’ Excellence in International Journalism Awards Dinner enables us to respond to the critical needs of journalists in countries with little or no tradition of a free press. Funds raised at the dinner directly support our high-quality programs, which benefit thousands of journalists and media managers each year.
ICFJ would like to thank those individuals and organizations who are sponsoring this year’s event (click for sponsors). Proceeds from the Excellence in International Journalism Awards Dinner directly support ICFJ’s independent media development work, including targeted, hands-on training, international exchanges and fellowships. These significant programs have in the past 22 years assisted the efforts of more than 20,000 members of the international media to expand press freedom and raise the level of journalistic professionalism in their countries.
Tickets for the evening are $300 each.
Click to register online>
Please contact Susan Ross, ICFJ development manager, at 202.737.3700 or dinner@icfj.org to discuss sponsorship opportunities.
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