The Worldwide Girls’s Media Basis honored two journalists who “persist to report regardless of unbelievable odds” throughout their Braveness in Journalism awards.
The Worldwide Girls’s Media Basis honored two journalisms for his or her working reporting “regardless of unbelievable odds” throughout their annual Braveness in Journalism Awards Tuesday evening.
Co-Hosts Willow Bay, Gelila Assefa Puck and Charmaine DeGraté welcomed an intimate crowd for a dinner celebration in Los Angeles. Bay, who at present serves because the dean of the College of Southern California Annenberg Faculty for Communication and Journalism, has been concerned with the IWMF for twenty years and mentioned she feels grateful for Puck and DeGraté for becoming a member of her a co-host for this 12 months’s occasion.
“What’s fascinating now, many years later, is that their [journalists] tales used to really feel a bit of distant. They had been on the market on the planet,” Bay informed The Hollywood Reporter.
“Right now, we live at a second the place freedom of the press has by no means been extra in jeopardy, the place ladies journalists and non-binary journalists have by no means been extra in peril,” she continued, noting that the hazard is as near house as it’s distant. “I believe the inspiration stays true each 12 months, however the sense of urgency feels very highly effective and really palpable proper now to help this type of work.”
“I believe that we’ve all seen the previous few years now greater than ever, there appears to be a bit of little bit of risk round journalism, notably, particularly feminine journalism,” DeGraté mentioned of why the IWMF’s work is so significant to her.
Puck, who mentioned Bay introduced her into the fold, mentioned she has “at all times” been towards corruption. “Right here you might have unbelievable journalists that spotlight the reality, that battle each single day on the market in a struggle zone,” she mentioned, highlighting that the journalists additionally unveil corruption amongst authorities officers. “These are journalists that can not be purchased. A company like this, is so vital, these days, that it exists as a result of with out this group, we can not actually carry the reality to the world.”
Among the many ladies honored had been New Hampshire-based NHPR reporter Lauren Chooljian and Ecuadorian journalist Mónica Velásquez, the latter of which was unable to attend as she has needed to flee from her native nation following her investigative reporting into political corruption and arranged crime.
Rudabeh Shahbazi and Lauren Chooljian.
Vince Bucci
Chooljian, a senior reporter and producer at NH’s NPR affiliate, was honored for her work because the host and reporter behind The thirteenth Step, a podcast about sexual misconduct within the habit therapy business within the state. “I do audio storytelling, so telling dynamic tales that individuals simply wish to hear extra of is such an incredible alternative and I like to do it,” she mentioned.
“It’s exceedingly tough work, particularly whenever you’re taking up huge subjects like this, however what motivates me is that so many individuals are courageous sufficient to talk with me and it’s their bravery,” she continued. “I believe that retains me going.”
IWMF additionally honored documentary filmmaker Shin Daewe of Myanmar with the Wallis Annenberg Justice for Girls Journalists Award. Daewe was sentenced to life in jail in 2024 for, based on the IWMF, “allegedly ‘funding and aiding terrorists’ and was charged behind closed doorways by a army tribunal with out entry to authorized illustration.”
Gulchehra Hoja, a 2020 Braveness in Journalism honoree, closed out the evening, in dialog with Bay. The Uyghur journalist, who works for Radio Free Asia within the U.S., spoke of her and the Uyghur folks’s expertise, including that she has been banned from returning house.
Willow Bay and Gulchehra Hoja.
Vince Bucci
“In comparison with common journalists within the U.S., each time we interview somebody in [the] Uyghur neighborhood, we will need to have to ask, ‘Do you wish to give your identify and voice to us, to our radio? Is it going to hurt your loved ones again house?” Hoja defined.
“This query, each time I repeat [it], I’ll take into consideration my household too,” she continued. Hoja mentioned she has been unable to speak together with her household for years. The journalist mentioned that reporting on her radio present in her language pushes and the present’s workforce as they’re preserving their language.
“The stakes are clearly totally different,” Chooljian mentioned, referring to her work and Hoja’s work. “But when we don’t inform these tales, then who will?”
