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Courage in journalism recognised

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courage in journalism, ‘It takes courage to report the news in many parts of the world.’

For the past 22 years, the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) has paid tribute to women journalists who risk their lives to report the news with its Courage in Journalism Awards.

The Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes a woman journalist who has a pioneering spirit and whose determination has paved the way for women in the news media.

This year, the Awards honour Najiba Ayubi, Nour Kelze, Bopha Phorn and Edna Machirori.

Najiba Ayubi, 45, is managing director for The Killid Group in Afghanistan.

Ayubi also co-founded the Afghan Independent Media Consortium and the Freedom of Expression Initiative, both with the intention of providing resources and support for independent journalists in her country.

Ayubi has spent more than a decade working under anonymous threats and attacks from government entities for her reporting on politics and women’s rights.

She leads a team of reporters working in print, broadcast and online media and has refused calls for censorship.

For more than two decades, Ayubi has been a leading independent voice in Afghan media, and she has regularly received threatening phone calls and letters since 2004.

Threats tied to her critical reporting and her refusal, as director of a news organization, to censor the stories that are published and broadcast on her watch.

Politicians have sent gunmen to her home, anonymous aggressors have vowed to harm her family, and she has been publicly defamed, but in each case, she has faced her attackers and has rejected calls to limit her work.

Nour Kelze is a 25 year-old photojournalist for Reuters in Syria.

Kelze occupies the front lines of the conflict in her country, working to document the human cost of the Syrian revolution; she has been shot at countless times, hospitalized twice for wounds sustained while photographing, and targeted in pro-Assad propaganda.

She has been working as a photojournalist and stringer since 2012 – when she was discovered taking pictures of revolutionary fighters on her cell phone by a well-known war photographer.

She was a school teacher prior to the war, but is now doing a job that few Syrian journalists – and even fewer women – have been willing to do.

Kelze has been on the front lines of the Syrian revolution, recording the human cost of Syria’s fight for democracy, has been targeted in pro-regime propaganda and has received threats via social media.

In February 2013, Kelze’s ankle was broken when a wall fell on her as she retreated from sniper fire. Four days after surgery to repair the break, she was back to work in a cast.

She now plans to set up a media center in Aleppo. Her vision is to provide training and support for Syrian and international journalists, with a focus on women.

Bopha Phorn, 28, is a reporter for The Cambodia Daily in Cambodia.

Her reporting on environmental exploitation nearly got her killed in April 2012, when her car came under heavy fire during a reporting trip in the Cambodian jungle.

She was investigating claims of illegal logging in a protected area of the Cambodian jungle with another journalist and an environmental activist when gunmen with AK-47s sprayed the car with shots. The activist, Chut Wutty, was killed.

Phorn’s reporting on land and environmental issues, as well as her stories about criminal activity and human rights abuses, have made her the target of other life-threatening attacks.

But in spite of the danger she is committed to journalism and has taken up some of the most controversial stories of the day.

This year’s IWMF Lifetime Achievement Award goes to Edna Machirori, the first black female newspaper editor in Zimbabwe.

As a woman journalist in post-colonial Zimbabwe, Machirori rose through the ranks of several newspapers, including The Chronicle and The Financial Gazette, in spite of a deeply patriarchal culture.

Machirori writes about development, corruption and social issues, has acted as a mentor to other women throughout her career and has faced down critics of her incisive reporting.

She started  in journalism in 1963 as a cadet reporter for the African Daily News, a nationalist newspaper based in Harare – known as Salisbury under colonial rule – after sending the paper “letters to the editor” while she was in high school.

During her early years with the African Daily News, Machirori was the only woman on the staff at any level. Later, she occupied editing positions at The Chronicle and The Financial Gazette.

In 1988, she was leading the news team as news editor when The Chronicle published “The Willowgate Scandal”, an investigation into corruption among high-level members of ruling party ZANU-PF.

Today, Machirori freelances for several publications in her country. She has been publicly criticized by ZANU-PF officials for her writing on politics, but she continues, working to challenge the official line on important issues.

BBC News’ Kate Adie is among the 22 journalists who have so far been honoured with the IWMF Lifetime Achievement Award. Previous Award winners include Zubeida Mustafa, columnist, Pakistan; Barbara Walters, ABC News, United States; and Magdalena Ruiz, Radio Mitre, Argentina.

Seventy-eight journalists have been honoured with Courage in Journalism Awards.

Previous award winners include Khadija Ismayilova, RFE/RL, Azerbaijan; Adela Navarro Bello, Zeta, Mexico; Tsering Woeser, blogger and writer, Tibet; Jill Carroll, The Christian Science Monitor, United States; May Chidiac, Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation, Lebanon; and Anna Politkovskaya, of Novaya Gazeta, Russia, who was shot dead in 2006.

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