Through the Knight International Press Fellowship Award, the International Center for Journalists recognizes media professionals in developing countries and emerging democracies who have made remarkable contributions to press freedom and independence in his or her region of the world. Past recipients have ranged from pioneering radio journalists exposing government corruption to crusading publishers struggling to keep their newspapers, often the only source of independent news in the area, financially viable.

As Knight International Press Fellowship Award winners symbolize the journalistic ideas fostered by the James L. and John S. Knight Foundation and the mission of the International Center for Journalists, the prize is given to those nominated by Knight International Press Fellows past and present and the staff of ICFJ. Winners are, in one Knight Fellow’s words, “those who, against all odds, toil with quiet determination to maintain high professional standards and journalistic integrity and independence.”

Award winners are flown to the United States to receive the honor, which includes a cash prize, at the autumn annual dinner of the International Center for Journalists. The trip allows them an opportunity to connect with a network of colleagues in Washington, D.C., who support their causes.

Brief bios of this year’s award winners are found below.

2005 Knight Award Winners

Bambang Harymurti is the editor-in-chief of Tempo – the weekly newsmagazine and the daily newspaper of the same name. His long, distinguished career in Indonesian journalism includes a variety of domestic and international postings within Tempo, which he has seen through numerous closures and re-openings, as well as being executive editor of Media Indonesia, another daily. In between all those assignments, Bambang found time to be an Alfred Friendly Press Fellow in 1986, when he worked at TIME magazine’s Washington bureau, and take up a scholarship offer to study for a master’s degree at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Bambang, unfortunately, has garnered fame through his struggle to fight libel charges filed by a business tycoon. He was also accused of fomenting riots by disseminating lies. The “riot,” however, involved an attack on Tempo’s office by thugs threatening to burn down the building, harassing staff and injuring one reporter. Later that day at the central Jakarta police station, Bambang was punched and kicked by mob leaders as law enforcers looked the other way. A series of judicial irregularities ultimately resulted in 2004 in Bambang’s being found guilty and sentenced to one year’s imprisonment.

The international attention his case has garnered is an unexpected development for a man whose childhood dream was to be an astronaut. Bambang even qualified as a potential astronaut when working on a story about Indonesia’s space program. He has had equal success as a journalist. In addition to receiving the Knight International Press Fellowship Award, Bambang is a winner of the Vernon Award of the Mason Program and the Excellence in Journalism Award given by the daily Indonesian Observer.

The recognition is worthy of his commitment to journalism. Upon hearing his guilty verdict, Bambang shouted to those present in the court: “Don’t worry, my friends! We shall continue the fight for freedom of the press!”

Marcelo Beraba is founder and president of the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism, or ABRAJI, the first organization of its kind in South America’s largest country. He is also Brazil’s leading ombudsman, writing a trenchant and fearless weekly column in his own newspaper, Folha de S. Paulo, the country’s most influential daily. In both these highly visible positions, Beraba works to establish a new level of independent Brazilian journalism, demanding better performance and higher ethical standards from reporters and editors. He also uses his roles to hold up those in power to greater public scrutiny.

Beraba was spurred to establish ABRAJI after the murder by drug traffickers of his colleague, reporter Tim Lopes. “This was a case that shocked us greatly, and we felt that there wasn’t any understanding or respect for the work that we did in Brazil,” Beraba wrote. To change that, ABRAJI has strived to raise standards by offering colleagues training on narco-trafficking and corruption coverage, access to information, journalist protection, freedom-of-expression laws, and the relationship between the press and the judiciary, among other topics.

His role as his newspaper’s ombudsman is the crowning achievement of a career of more than three decades that started with the municipal beat at Rio de Janeiro’s O Globo. He remained in Rio as a reporter and, eventually, bureau chief for Folha before being transferred to its headquarters in Sao Paulo. There, Beraba became editor for daily news and, in 1989, political editor during the coverage of Brazil’s first presidential election in 28 years. In the 1990s, he was Folha’s managing editor and – before becoming its ombudsman in 2004 – served as executive editor at Jornal do Brasil and executive editor for nightly news at the O Globo television network, Brazil’s largest. He also served during that time as director of the Committee for Freedom of Expression at the Brazilian Newspaper Association.

Beraba will host the 2006 annual meeting of the Organization of Newspaper Ombudsmen. He beat out competitors for the honor by citing his reasons for placing the conference in Sao Paulo: ombudsmen are rare or non-existent in the countries in which they are most needed; the primarily American and European institution needs other cultural perspectives; educated societies are now, more than ever, pressing for media with more balance, quality and diversity; and self-regulation is a shield against government control and direction.

Mahjoub Mohamed Salih has been working as a journalist in one of the world’s most repressive media environments for more than half a century. His career has been marked by harassment, imprisonment and the nationalization and repeated closure of his newspaper, Al-Ayam, which he established in 1958.

Salih’s position as a leader in the promotion of press freedom in Sudan was renewed in 2003, when Al-Ayam became the first newspaper to report on the situation in Darfur. The coverage, related editorial warnings to the government to deal with the situation, and other reports on rebel activities and topics critical of the government prompted his incarceration and the three-month closure of his paper. But Salih’s work did cause diplomatic missions and international organizations to be aware of the tragedy in Darfur and publicize it.

The episode was not new for Al-Ayam. The paper was closed twice by Khartoum’s military government of the 1960s, nationalized in 1970, returned to Salih in 1986 only to be shut down again in 1989. It re-opened a decade later, with staff still subject to the government’s repressive policies.

Despite all the hardships, Salih has maintained his faith in a free and independent Sudanese media. Al-Ayam remains a training ground for journalists who share Salih’s passion. He is a mentor to young journalists working in English and Arabic, and also furthers his ideals through his work in national and regional organizations. Salih is a founding member of the Federation of Arab journalists and the African Journalists Union, and has served as General Secretary of The Sudan Journalists Union.

In an interview earlier this year, Salih acknowledged the origin of his commitment to journalism and his need to give back to the profession. “I think that training instilled in me a spirit of resistance and resilience. I only hope that we succeed in passing this legacy to present and future journalists in Sudan,” he said.

The 2005 Paul Klebnikov Prize for Courage in Journalism

Diana Kachalova is the trailblazing editor-in-chief of Moy Rayon, a rare publication in today’s Russia. The paper is a grassroots, independent and privately owned weekly that survives exclusively on advertising revenue. It has 11 community editions for the city of St. Petersburg. Kachalova graduated from the department of journalism at St. Petersburg State University and shortly thereafter began working at Nevskoye Vremya as a political reporter, editor and foreign correspondent based in the United States. Kachalova also covered conflicts in Chechnya, Southern Ossetia, and Abkhazia for Nevskoye Vremya. She has been a contributor to National Public Radio, CNN and BBC Television and Radio on Russian politics, among other topics. At Moy Rayon, Kachalova defines the editorial policy and long- and short-term editorial goals, and collaborates with the executive management to set objectives for the newspapers’ editions. Kachalova aims for Moy Rayon to provide balanced, fact-based local news for the citizens of St. Petersburg and its communities and neighborhoods; the paper should be a beacon for them to make informed decisions about important social and political issues.

“Maintaining independence and objectivity in Russia today is something of a struggle.” – Diana Kachalova

2004

Ali Djerri is president and publisher of El Khabar, Algeria's most widely read newspaper. A human-rights activist throughout his career, Djerri uses his prominent position to advance an unstinting pursuit of press freedom. His determination and perseverance have made the El Khabar group (which includes the El Khabar daily, a website, a weekly news-magazine and other publications) the focus of much attention. Its independent reporting has spurred 88 lawsuits with Djerri cited as primary defendant. His courage during Algeria's "decade of terror," during which 60 journalists were killed, set an example for colleagues.

Djerri continues to fight for independent media despite being the first Algerian journalist, in 1992, to be targeted by a terrorist attack. He survived, but his car was burned. He has been condemned to death by several terror groups.

Djerri holds numerous executive positions within trade associations, a reflection of the administration shown by his colleagues in Algeria and throughout the Middle East and North Africa. Earlier this year, he was elected deputy president of the Arab Press Freedom Watch. Djerri has also been a main supporter of bringing journalism trainers and media experts from abroad to Algeria. Djerri is one of two Algerian publishers supporting the Algerian Network of Media Trainers, established after a series of training programs in Algeria run by the International Center for Journalists. Djerri is also a founder of the Algerian Journalists' Movement and the Algerian Journalists' Association

Paul Radu is a co-founder of the Romanian Center for Investigative Journalism (CRJI) and special investigative reporter for the Bucharest-based newspaper Jurnalul National. CRJI is a non-governmental organization that seeks to enhance the quality and standards of investigative journalism in Romania and throughout central Europe. Its website, www.crji.org, publishes investigative stories that can find no other outlet, usually for reasons involving the political or financial conflicts of interest inherent in many of the region's publications. Among the website's works is a project, coordinated by Radu, on human trafficking in central Europe. Journalists f rom eight countries were involved, uncovering rampant trafficking of women in the region. Radu's own work has connected the collapse of one of Romania's leading state-owned banks, costing two billion dollars, to a major contributor to the country's ruling party.

Radu also has considerable experience training journalists. He has served as a trainer for the International Center for Journalists, most recently last summer in Warsaw when he led sessions on human trafficking for Balkan and Caucasus reporters. He has also taught sessions on investigative journalism, databases and Freedom of Information acts for the Center for Independent Journalism in Bucharest.

Radu was awarded an Alf red Friendly Press Fellowship in 2001, during which he investigated illegal child-adoption for the San Antonio Express-News. He is a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (www.icij.org).

Paul Klebnikov was the first editor of Forbes Russia until his murder in Moscow on July 9, 2004. He was 41 years old and left behind a wife and three young children. Klebnikov launched the magazine, a joint venture between Forbes and Axel Springer, in 2003 in an effort to bring American business journalism to Russia. He caused a sensation with a blockbuster issue that included the first-ever list of Russia's 100 richest people. The related story estimated their worth and investigated how it was acquired. Klebnikov won no f riends by revealing what had long been hidden.

The son of Russian émigrés had been with Forbes since 1989 and rose to the position of senior editor before moving to Moscow. In his obituary of Klebnikov, Steven Forbes described him as "a superb reporter - courageous, energetic, ever curious" whose stories contained information that "was always f resh, insightful, fascinating."

Klebnikov was well known for his investigative reporting. His research into the activities and connections of one of Russia's most famous businessmen led to a book, "Godfather of the Kremlin: Boris Berezovsky and the Looting of Russia." A second book, "Conversation with a Barbarian," focused on the views of a Chechen gangster. And last year, Klebnikov completed a widely admired cover story, "Millionaire Mullahs," which examined corruption among Iran's theocratic rulers. Klebnikov was fluent in Russian and French. He attended the London School of Economics, where he completed a doctoral thesis on agricultural reform under Tsar Nicholas II.

Klebnikov's family, friends and colleagues have recently established the Paul Klebnikov Fund, which is dedicated to encouraging other journalists to follow in his footsteps. Its mandate is to support individuals who are dedicated to preserving Russia's heritage and furthering Klebnikov's dream of a civil society and a f ree press in Russia. The Fund will award an annual prize to journalists f rom Russia and its neighboring states who embody Klebnikov's professional and civic ideals. The Fund will also sponsor internships for Russian print and broadcast journalists to train in Western newsrooms in Russia and the United States. For more information, please visit www.paulklebnikovfund.org.

2003

José António Belo's television footage vividly told the story of those fighting for the independence of East Timor from Indonesia. Belo videotaped a banned political demonstration in 1995 and was captured and tortured by Indonesian military and imprisoned for 18 months. Upon release, he ventured into conflict zones with his camera and shot some of the first footage of fighting between rebel forces and Indonesian soldiers. In 1999, following the East Timorese vote for independence, he videotaped the wholesale destruction of his country by pro-Jakarta militias. With the arrival of multinational peacekeepers, Associated Press Television offered him a position as their local cameraman. His pictures of the reconstruction of East Timor and of the country’s independence celebration in 2002 have been seen on news programs around the world. Today, Belo covers a different struggle in East Timor – the growth and survival of democratic institutions and the fight for economic independence in one of the world’s newest nations.

Corina Cepoi was the first director of the Independent Journalism Center (IJC) in Chisinau, Moldova. The Center provides journalism training, legal support and resources for the country’s media and has developed a reputation for being one of the few sources of encouragement for journalists in this former Soviet republic, now the poorest country in Europe. Cepoi has dedicated herself to raising the standards by which Moldovan journalists and media managers operate. She strives to eliminate the compromises that reporters can be compelled to make under existing political and economic pressures. After guiding the Center through its first years, Cepoi is now directing the establishment of Moldova’s first school of journalism at the IJC.

José Rubén Zamora is the editor of elPeriodico in Guatemala City. Zamora began his career in journalism at the age of 17 as a reporter for the family newspaper, La Hora. He then established Siglo Veintiuno (21 st Century), a daily that earned a reputation as Guatemala’s most daring newspaper. Its investigative reporting soon led to harassment, death threats and physical attacks on Zamora and his staff. When the government censored the paper, Zamora changed the masthead to Siglo Catorce (14th Century) and ran solid blocks of black ink in the place of censored stories. After Zamora resigned from Siglo Veintiuno, he was the target of a grenade attack, which he believed was to prevent him from founding another newspaper. But with the assistance of donations from fellow Guatemalans, Zamora soon launched elPeriodico. Zamora has continued to face harassment over his newspaper’s investigations into corruption and drug trafficking. In June 2003, he and his family were attacked in their home by 12 men, who warned, “If you value your children, stop bothering the people above.” Zamora sent his family into exile, but he remains in Guatemala.

2002

Mahassen al-Emam became the first female editor-in-chief of a Jordanian newspaper in 1994. In 1999, she established the Arab Women Media Center (AWMC) in Jordan to support female journalists following in her footsteps. The center is the only one of its kind in the Arab world and is opposed by most of the region's governments and the official press. In three years, the center's membership has grown to nearly 200. Shortly after AWMC's inception, al-Emam resigned from the Jordanian Press Association, where she had been a member since 1979 and had served as the first elected female member of the association's High Committee. She resigned in response to the association's criticizing her for accepting foreign money to fund a training conference. She now writes only for Paris- or London-based Arab publications, where she can express her views freely in her native language.

Andrew Kromah, who in 1993 and 1996, respectively, established KISS-FM in Bo and SKYY-FM in the capital, Freetown, to fill an information vacuum in the wake of Sierra Leone's devastating civil war. In regions that received KISS-FM's 1996 and 2002 election broadcasts, voter turnout was significantly higher than in other areas. While promoting respect for human rights and a civil society in one of the world's most hostile press environments, Kromah has nonetheless ensured that each side in the civil war had its voice heard, whether rebels, government forces or civilians. He also has developed a system of corruption reporting under the pseudonym "Mr. Owl," which has led to increased transparency among numerous commercial and governmental institutions. Despite several attempts on his life, most recently by a rebel group opposed to his views, Kromah continues, undaunted.

2001

Eugenia Apostol, president of the Pinoy Times in the Philippines, received the first Knight award for lifetime achievement in journalism. As the editor of Mr. & Mrs. during the years of Ferdinand E. Marcos’s rule, Apostol transformed her publication from a women’s magazine to a political force that energized the first People’s Power revolt of 1983-84. In 1999, Apostol established the Pinoy Times and again found herself at the center of a political struggle. She exposed bribes to then-President Joseph Estrada, which ignited the Second People’s Power revolution that led to Estrada’s eventual downfall. Apostol has devoted more than five decades to securing a free press for her country and continues to serve as a check on any government that would seek to limit that freedom.

Adam Komers, a news presenter for Czech TV, was instrumental in organizing a strike by most of Czech TV’s staff during the winter of 2000-2001, following the election of Jiri Hodac as general director. Known as the “Rebels,” Komers and his colleagues barricaded themselves in the station and broadcast a plea of support against the efforts of Hodac and the right-wing party to influence Czech TV’s programming. Their call was answered as protesters gathered in Wenceclas Square and succeeded in obtaining Hodac’s resignation just three weeks after he had taken the post. The Czech TV Council was dismissed by parliament several days later, opening the way for new rules to be put in place to limit the politicization of the station.

Geoffrey Nyarota, the editor in chief of The Daily News in Zimbabwe, faces ongoing threats to his life and personal freedom by reporting on the country’s corruption and violence. Despite having his presses blown up and destroyed, Nyarota’s paper has never missed an edition and continues to report daily on the state that Zimbabwe has become under Mugabe. In August of 2001, Nyarota was arrested for criminal defamation against the police. Though he was later released, his future status remains unclear.

2000

Andrei Babitsky, a reporter for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, was detained by Russian security forces and ultimately traded for three Russian prisoners of war early this year, presumably in an effort to silence his independent and honest reporting on the war in Chechnya. Both before and after his ordeal, Babitsky has shown a courageous devotion to journalistic integrity and a drive to combat governmental infringements on a free press, in spite of the personal ramifications. In awarding their 2000 Prize for Journalism, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly noted that Babitsky “has reported on the conflict in Chechnya with complete disregard for his personal safety…[and his] reporting on the conflict in Chechnya has been widely recognized for its objectivity and fairness.”

The African Eye News Service has repeatedly rallied against corruption, fraud, and injustice on a continent where press freedom is often nonexistent and the media is characterized by sensationalism and disregard for the basic tenets of journalism -- fairness, accuracy, and balance. Editor Justin Arenstein and two other journalists founded AENS in 1995 after being fired from a local “country” newspaper for advocating equal pay rates freelance black and white reporters. Though intentionally located in one of South Africa’s most rural provinces, AENS has remained financially independent and is owned by its employees. Despite death threats and attempts to undermine their professional reputation, the Service journalists continue to be a beacon for fledging media outlets in the region and set the standard for accurate, community-based journalism in Africa.

1999

Bharat Dutta Koirala, widely hailed as the leading trainer of journalists in his country, is the secretary general of the Nepal Press Institute. Mr. Koirala has been the primary leader in helping to establish a free press in his country after the formation of a parliamentary democracy eight years ago. Koirala’s Nepal Press Institute is a hallmark of press freedom in South Asia. Despite a lack of resources and a country fighting poverty, Koirala has succeeded in creating a bustling institution that gives a 10-month diploma program for aspiring journalists each year. Koirala began his career as the chief reporter of The Rising Nepal (TRN), one of the country’s top English-language dailies. Since then, he has worked as a correspondent for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), as the chief editor for Gorkhapatra Daily, and as regional director of Asia for Worldview International Foundation. He currently is the chairman of the Worldview International Foundation, the Himal Association, Media Services International and chairman of the Board for Sagarmatha FM Radio Project.

Helena Luczywo: Gazeta Wyborcza (Electoral Gazette), the first independent daily in a communist country, was launched in May 1989 as a thin and modest newspaper published out of a building that housed a day-care center. A decade later, it is the largest national daily in Poland with a circulation of 500,000 on weekdays, 800,000 on weekends, and 18 regional editions. The greatest strength of Gazeta is its committed staff of journalists who have been able to organize a modern editorial office as an effective enterprise. In this process, the most instrumental person always has been Helena Luczywo.

Luczywo has been the deputy editor-in-chief of Gazeta Wyborcza and a member of the Management Board of Agora and of Agora Holding since 1989. In addition to her role on the Management Board, Luczywo is responsible for overseeing the Editorial Department and the Human Resources/Premises Department. From 1977 to 1980 she served as the editor of the Robotnik opposition weekly. In 1981, she became editor-in-chief of the Solidarnosc Press Agency. From 1981 to 1989, she was the deputy editor-in-chief of the Tygodnik Mazowsze, the underground Solidarity weekly. In 1989 she participated in the round table discussions between the communist government and the opposition as a representative of the underground press to the media council. Ms. Luczywo is the recipient of the Louis M. Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism from the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University (1989), as well as Radcliffe University’s Bunting Institute Peace Fellowship (1986).

1998

Anna Zarkova, a crime reporter from Bulgaria, heads the Police and Criminal News Department at Trud Daily in Sofia. Zarkova covers the Interior Ministry, the courts, the criminal investigation office, the prosecutor's office and the customs office. A graduate in philology from Sofia University, Zarkova worked for the newspaper 166 before joining Trud Daily. In 1994 she won the Reporter of the Year Award for her investigative reporting. In 1994 and again in 1995, Zarkova was named Best Reporter of Media Holding Ltd., which publishes Trud Daily and four other newspapers. In 1997 she was awarded the Honorary Medal of the National Police Syndicate. Zarkova is the author of the book The Big Murders of Bulgaria. Her articles, interviews and analyses have set high standards for unbiased and credible investigative reporting in Bulgaria.

Enrique Zileri Gibsón is chief executive officer of CARETAS magazine in Lima, Peru. Zileri has spent most of his 40 years in journalism defending democracy and democratic principles, human rights and freedom of the press. CARETAS has a history of conflicts with the Peruvian government. It was banned for most of 1975 and again during 1976. In 1979 it was closed down by the military regime. In 1975 Zileri won the Maria Moors Cabot Award from the University of Columbia and the Mergenthaler Award from the Inter American Press Association. His work was also honored with the LASA Media Award in 1994. Zileri was President of the International Press Institute from 1988 to 1990. He is a member of the Inter American Press Association, the Colegio de Periodistas del Peru, the Press Council of Peru and a founding member of the Latin American Journalism Center (CELAP) in Panama.