THE MONTHLY NEWSLETTER OF THE OVERSEAS PRESS CLUB OF AMERICA, NEW YORK, NY • July/August 2012 News From Egypt Unfolded During Panel EVENT RECAP: JUNE 19 log, filling in the audience by Aimee Vitrak on the breaking Egypt’s first election in 7000 news of the day years was held on June 17 and 18. and leveraging But if this election was long in the his familiar- making, so too were the results with ity of a Muslim both candidates claiming victory as country from the military seized control and re- his time as a re- ports surfaced that the deposed dicta- porter for The tor Hosni Mubarak was brain dead. New York Times All of this news was breaking right Sonya K. Fry in Jakarta. up to start of the program on June 19 During the at the Ford Foundation and injected From left, panelists Bazzi, Sennott and Sims. program, the the discussion with a sense of im- election results were looking favor- of this election contain everything mediacy and an urging for American able for the Muslim Brotherhood, Americans believe in is on the line. media to cover Egypt and for the which in many countries can be “Do we support democracy or sta- public to learn more about the U.S. construed as a terrorist organization. bility?” The question was about involvement with Egypt. However, Sennott said terrorism was the $1.3 billion in funding the U.S. Panelists included Mohamad too pat a conception for the Brother- gives to Egypt, largely to support the Bazzi who is a senior fellow for hood in Egypt, which has wanted to military and status quo. In the past, Middle Eastern studies at the Coun- rule in that country since its found- the U.S. has supported the military, cil on Foreign Relations and former ing in 1928. Sennott said the results Middle East bureau chief for News- (Continued on Page 2) day. Charles M. Sennott, executive editor and co-founder of GlobalPost Russia’s Top Cop Denies Threat, Then Apologizes who covered the Egyptian revolts by Larry Martz and the Muslim Brotherhood in A rare shaft of daylight pierced his Frontline/WGBH documentary the hermetically sealed world of the “Revolution in Cairo,” which was Kremlin this week with the unfolding excerpted at the event to fill in the of the bizarre case of Aleksandr Bas- picture of the Muslim Brotherhood. trykin, the head of Russia’s equiva- Calvin Sims, Program Officer, lent of the FBI. Accused of threat- Freedom of Expression Unit of the ening to kill a prominent Russian Ford Foundation facilitated the dia- reporter, Bastrykin first blustered Novaya Gazeta’s editor-in-chief that the story was “outright lies,” Dmitry Muratov in October 2011. In Inside. . . “stupidities and innuendo.” Then he the background is an image of Anna Politkovskaya who was killed in 2006. called a press conference and issued OPC Election Slate...... 3-6 an apology — without admitting the The letter said Bastrykin, angered by Cruise Lecture Circuit...... 6 facts or even explaining what he was a story the paper had published, had apologizing for. its deputy editor for investigative People...... 7-10 The story broke when Dmitry reporting, Sergei Sokolov, driven to Muratov, editor in chief of the cru- a section of forest outside Moscow, Journalists in Mexico...... 11 sading newspaper Novaya Gazeta, where Bastrykin threatened to kill New Books...... 12 published an open letter to Bastrykin. (Continued on Page 2) Egypt Event: Continued From Page 1 experience, so far, has and indirectly Mubarak, for the return of an ally in the been a failure.” Middle East and stability. Now however, if the Brother- The panel revealed hood was elected in a fair election, then democracy must how intertwined the prevail, even if the candidate is not preferred by the U.S. Egyptian economy Sennott underscored that the repression in Egypt has and military have be- come at the hands of the Mubarak-led government, not come. For example, President Morsi in July. the Muslim Brotherhood. “America needs to have a so- when an officer serves phisticated reponse...if we fear the Muslim Brotherhood, his time in the army and is ready for retirement, he is we lose that moment.” given, by the government, a business, like a shopping Bazzi said that there are other manifestations of the center or grocery chain as part of the retirement package. Brotherhood, with Hamas in Palestine and Syria. “I’d Sennott said, that if Mubarak died soon, it would be a be worried if Egypt’s Brotherhood were like Syria’s,” metaphor for the collapse of his regime, “in the end, even he said. “The best way to expose any weakness in these his death is an injustice because he is getting away with groups is to give them a chance to govern. The limited murder.”
Russia Threat: Continued From Page 1 was to call a meeting at the offices of the Interfax news Sokolov and joked that he personally would lead the in- agency. With the most prominent journalists in Russia vestigation into his death. Muratov said Sokolov had in attendance, Bastrykin issued his apology, shook hands fled the country, and demanded that Bastrykin guarantee with Muratov, and said he had spoken by phone with So- his safety. kolov and offered him a wristwatch as a gesture of con- Novaya Gazeta is no stranger to violence. At least ciliation. Muratov said the matter was settled, and “Ev- erything that I demanded in the letter has been satisfied.” three of its journalists have been killed in the past decade The OPC’s Freedom of the Press Committee has writ- in retaliation for their reporting, including the illustrious ten two letters to Putin in response to this odd case. The Anna Politkovskaya, winner of the OPC’s first Artyom first, before Bastrykin’s apology, demanded that he be Borovik award for investigative reporting in Russia. No suspended from his office while Muratov’s charges were one has been punished for any of the killings. investigated, and that criminal charges must be filed if In an interview with the newspaper Izvestia, Bas- the story was true. The second letter repeated those de- trykin denied the whole story. As head of Russia’s In- mands, explaining that Bastrykin’s threat, if true, “was a vestigative Committee and a university classmate of the crime, which no vague apology can erase.” It would also newly restored President Vladimir V. Putin, he clearly represent “a gross dereliction of duty” undermining the felt no threat from a mere newspaper. What happened to rule of law, and faith in the system could be restored only change his mind may never be known, but his next move with Bastrykin’s prosecution.
OVERSEAS PRESS CLUB OF AMERICA • BOARD OF GOVERNORS PRESIDENT SECRETARY Tim Ferguson Toni Reinhold ASSOCIATE BOARD PAST PRESIDENTS David A. Andelman Jane Ciabattari Editor Editor in Charge, MEMBERS EX-OFFICIO Editor Author/Journalist Forbes Asia New York Desk Bill Collins John Corporon World Policy Journal Reuters Director, Public & Allan Dodds Frank ACTIVE BOARD Chrystia Freeland Business Affairs Alexis Gelber FIRST VICE PRESIDENT Ron Allen Global Editor-at-Large Tom Squitieri Ford Motor Company William J. Holstein Marcus Mabry Correspondent Thomson Reuters Freelance Journalist Marshall Loeb Editor at Large NBC News Emma Daly Larry Martz International Herald Tribune Evelyn Leopold Gillian Tett Communications Roy Rowan Rebecca Independent Journalist U.S. Managing Editor Director Leonard Saffir SECOND VICE PRESIDENT Blumenstein United Nations Financial Times Human Rights Watch Larry Smith Michael Serrill Page One Editor Richard B. Stolley Assistant Managing Editor The Wall Street Journal Santiago Lyon Seymour Topping Sarah Lubman Bloomberg Markets Director of Emeritus Partner EXECUTIVE Paul Brandus Photography Professor of Brunswick Group DIRECTOR THIRD VICE PRESIDENT West Wing Report Associated Pess International Sonya K. Fry Arlene Getz Journalism Abi Wright Editor-in-Charge, Media Jonathan Dahl John Martin Columbia University Director EDITOR Thomson Reuters Editor-in-Chief Writer/Editor Alfred I. duPont- Aimee Vitrak Smart Money Joel Whitney Columbia University TREASURER Abigail Pesta Editor Awards OPC Jacqueline Albert- Adam B. Ellick Editorial Director Guernica ISSN-0738-7202 Simon Video and Print Journalist Women in the World Copyright © 2002 U. S. Bureau Chief The New York Times Overseas Press Club of Politique Internationale America
40 West 45 Street, New York, NY 10036 USA • Phone: (212) 626-9220 • Fax: (212) 626-9210 • Website: opcofamerica.org OPC Bulletin • July/August 2012 • Page 2 Asia. She also helped launch the first Asian news bureau 2012 OPC Election Slate for WSJ.com. Before that, she was based in London OFFICERS for Dow Jones Newswires. She has won numerous PRESIDENT journalism awards for her reporting. Michael Serrill has been an OPC member for 19 years. He has Toni Reinhold is one of the editors served several times as a member in charge of Reuters’ Americas of the board, as second and third Desk. Reinhold has worked for Vice President and as Secretary. Reuters for more than 19 years He ran the awards judging panels as a correspondent, editor and for several years. He then became training editor. She also teaches Editor of Dateline, the magazine journalism around the world on distributed in conjunction with behalf of the Thomson Reuters the annual awards dinner. He ran that publication for Foundation. Before joining Reuters, more than a decade, then returned last year to the job Reinhold worked as a general and political reporter of organizing the awards panels. Serrill is Assistant and investigative reporter and as an internationally Managing Editor at Bloomberg Markets magazine. Early syndicated columnist. She is the author of several mass in his career Serrill was the editor of two criminal justice market books, including Untamed — The as-told-to publications underwritten by the Ford Foundation that autobiography of Gunther Gebel Williams and Patient were finalists for National Magazine Awards three times. or Pretender — Inside the Strange World of Factitious In his 15 years as an Editor and Senior Writer for Time Disorders. Reinhold is also in her second term as magazine, he covered topics from the first Palestinian president of The Newswomen’s Club of New York. intifada to famine in Ethiopia. After leaving Time, he served as Assistant Managing Editor/International TREASURER of Institutional Investor magazine, then as Asia and International Finance Editor of Business Week. Dorinda Elliott is a Global Affairs Editor at Condé Nast Traveler, where VICE PRESIDENTS she edits, writes, and helps spearhead the magazine’s coverage of ethical Tim Ferguson is Editor of Forbes travel and social responsibility and Asia, the English-language pub– the travel industry. She produces lication of Forbes magazine in a monthly interview with global the Asia/Pacific region. He also citizens, from Tony Blair on tourism oversees the Asian online content as a vehicle for peace in the Middle and is based in the company’s New York headquarters. Ferguson joined East to Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg on Forbes as its West Coast Bureau climate change and Madeline Albright on America’s role Manager in 1995, and he served as in the world. Before Condé Nast Traveler, Elliott served Assistant Managing Editor from 1998 to 2001. He has as Assistant Managing Editor at Time magazine. She been editing international editions since then. Prior to was a foreign correspondent for 20 years for Newsweek joining Forbes, he spent 12 years at The Wall Street magazine in Hong Kong, Beijing and Moscow. Journal as Editorial Features Editor, Business World Columnist and member of the Editorial Board. SECRETARY Jonathan Dahl was Editor-in- Abigail Pesta is the Editorial Chief of SmartMoney, the recently Director, Women in the World, for closed personal finance magazine Newsweek and The Daily Beast. She and website of The Wall Street has lived and worked as a journalist Journal. He held that position around the world from New York to for seven years and is a 28-year London to Hong Kong. She is the veteran of the Journal itself. former Editor-at-Large of Marie Under his leadership, SmartMoney Claire magazine in New York, and magazine and website won or had also a former News Editor at The been nominated for more than 20 national awards. Wall Street Journal Asia in Hong Kong. While based He has appeared on many TV news shows and in Hong Kong, Pesta ran a team of Journal reporters is the author of a personal finance book that was covering business, technology and culture throughout nominated for a national book award. In 1991,
OPC Bulletin • July/August 2012 • Page 3 Dahl wrote a story about homelessness that was 2009, having previously served as Managing Editor of nominated by the Journal for a Pulitzer Prize. The Wall Street Journal Online. Before that, she was He joined the OPC board a year ago and has served as the China Bureau Chief, overseeing China coverage for an awards judge. He is also on the board of the Deadline the Journal. Prior to moving to China in the summer of Club and a member of the Economic Club of New York. 2005, Blumenstein served as chief of the Journal’s New York Technology Group, which covered the historic ACTIVE mergers and changes in technology that recast the Jacqueline Albert-Simon is U.S. telecommunications industry. Bureau Chief and Associate Editor of Politique Internationale and Paul Brandus is an award-winning has spent three decades reporting, member of the White House press analyzing U.S. foreign policy for corps and founder of the West French and other European readers Wing Report in 2009 (Twitter: @ of PI. She has been a frequent WestWingReport). His career spans guest commentator on French and network television, Wall Street Canadian TV and radio, and a and several years as a foreign contributor to Figaro Magazine, French and American correspondent based in Moscow Vogue, La Vie Francaise and a contributing editor to where he covered the collapse of Harper’s magazine from 1984 to 1992. Albert-Simon the Soviet Union for NBC Radio and “Marketplace.” attended Davos throughout the 90’s and was a fellow Brandus sits on the Board of Governors of the OPC there for two years. She is presently senior resident and serves as its Washington, D.C. representative. He fellow at The Institute of French Studies at NYU, and is also a private investor and an entrepreneur who once is researching material for a book on the structural purchased the Russian rights to the Super Bowl from the limitations to democratic evolution. She is an active OPC National Football League — becoming the first person to board member, contributes to Dateline and frequently show the championship game in Russia. writes Freedom of the Press letters. Howard Chua-Eoan is the News Amar C. Bakshi was the World Director of Time and Time.com since Producer at CNN.com and Managing August 2000. Previous to becoming Editor of the Global Public Square News Director, he was a writer and CNN.com/GPS, CNN’s premier editor in the World, Nation and international analysis site. Bakshi Religion sections of the magazine. built and ran the site, designed its He was co-writer of the cover story social media outreach, and launched Time crashed the weekend of the “Uncommon Ground,” a web-based Tiananmen crackdown in June 1989. show placing unlikely pairings of Born in the Philippines, Chua-Eoan began working with people from around the world in virtual conversation. Time in April 1983 as a one-day-a-week secretary in the Before joining CNN, Bakshi served as Special Assistant Nation section. He has spent the last three decades at to the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan E. Time except for a delightful 15-month period when he Rice, where he worked on speechwriting, development was Front of the Book Editor at People. policy, Muslim outreach and integrating new media into diplomatic efforts. Prior to this position, Bakshi was a Deidre Depke is the Executive reporter for The Washington Post where he created a Editor of The Daily Beast. The video blog titled “How the World Sees America.” Bakshi site focuses on U.S. and domestic is finishing a master’s degree at the Johns Hopkins news, international events, cultural School of Advanced International Studies and beginning trends and entertainment. Depke a 3-year JD/MBA at Yale in the fall. previously worked as General Manager of TheWeek.com and as Rebecca Blumenstein is the Page editor of Newsweek.com, where One Editor and a Deputy Managing she presided over nearly 100 percent Editor of The Wall Street Journal. growth rates in audience and advertising for more than She became Page One Editor in a decade. She began her Newsweek career as Foreign September 2011. Blumenstein has Editor, managing coverage of the Hong Kong handover been a Deputy Managing Editor and and Princess Diana’s death, among other stories. Her International Editor since December New York career began at BusinessWeek.
OPC Bulletin • July/August 2012 • Page 4 Arlene Getz is the Editor-in- She has served as an OPC awards judge for the past charge, Media, at Reuters. In that three years. role, she oversees editorial content for Reuters’ print and online Santiago Lyon is Vice President subscribers; leads a national team and Director of Photography of The of assignment editors “embedded” Associated Press, responsible for in client newsrooms; develops U.S- the AP’s global photo report and the focused news packages and writes hundreds of photographers and photo occasional features designed to meet editors worldwide who produce it. the needs of U.S. publications. Prior to joining Reuters He has 28 years of experience in news in 2010, Getz worked at Newsweek in positions ranging service photography and has won from a correspondent covering the end of apartheid in multiple photojournalism awards for South Africa to a New York-based Managing Editor of his coverage of conflicts around the globe. Under Lyon’s Newsweek.com and the Editorial Director of Newsweek’s direction, the war in Iraq earned the AP its 48th Pulitzer network of local-language editions around the world. Her Prize and its 29th for photography in 2005 for work by a reporting and commentary has won many awards. She team of photographers including five Iraqis. He sits on has chaired the awards committee of the OPC, served the boards of the OPC and the Eddie Adams Workshop. two terms as an OPC Vice President and frequently He is also on the board of RISC, a non-profit dedicated serves as a judge for OPC and IRP fellowships. to providing emergency first aid training for freelance journalists. Lyon is currently a 2012 Sulzberger Fellow Azmat Khan is a digital producer at Columbia University, exploring ways to enhance AP’s and reporter for the award-winning photo business. PBS documentary series “Frontline.” In 2011, she was the field producer Marcus Mabry is Editor at Large in Cairo for the “Frontline” report, of The International Herald Tribune The Brothers, an investigation into and The New York Times, based in the Muslim Brotherhood’s role in the London and Paris. Prior to coming Egyptian revolution. She has helped to Europe in 2011, Mabry was the expand and integrate the series’ Associate National Editor of The broadcast, web and new media initiatives to remake New York Times, responsible for “Frontline” for the digital age. Khan has been an editor for coverage of U.S. politics. Mabry Tehran Bureau, an award-winning “virtual” news bureau came to the Times in 2007 as connecting journalists and readers. She has worked in International Business Editor, after nearly 20 years as disaster relief in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, at the an editor and correspondent at Newsweek. In his last Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C., and position at Newsweek, he was Chief of Correspondents, at Facebook in California. She frequently writes and responsible for deploying and managing the magazine’s speaks about how journalists can leverage innovative domestic and international correspondents. Mabry has digital platforms in storytelling. been based in Paris, Johannesburg, Washington and Atlanta. He was the 1999-2000 Edward R. Murrow Dafna Linzer is a Senior Invest– Press Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New igative Reporter at ProPublica. York and is the winner of numerous journalism prizes. She reports on topics like national Mabry’s latest book is Twice as Good: Condoleezza Rice security, foreign policy and criminal and Her Path to Power, an intimate examination of the justice. Her series on Presidential life and career of the former Secretary of State. Pardons was a finalist for the 2012 Goldsmith Prize. Her coverage of Romesh Ratnesar is the Deputy Guantanamo and detention in the Editor and International Editor of Obama Presidency won her the 2010 Bloomberg Businessweek, over– OPC award for General Excellence Online and received seeing editorial content in the honorable mention for the American Bar Association’s magazine’s global editions. Prior to Silver Gavel Award. She was a national security reporter this position, Ratnesar was a foreign- for The Washington Post, covering intelligence and affairs columnist and Contributing nonproliferation from 2004 to 2008. Before joining the Editor-at-Large for Time. He Post, she spent 10 years as a foreign correspondent for previously served as Time’s Deputy The AP. Based in Jerusalem, New York, and the U.N. (Continued on Page 6)
OPC Bulletin • July/August 2012 • Page 5 Parlay Your Expertise Into Affordable Vacations by Allan A. Swenson board “Port Previews,” only three per week, in exchange If you like to travel, perhaps this is one way for you for a seven-day cruise. In each port we took more digital to trade some illustrated talks for free cruises around the photos to expand our shows. world. Cruise lines need people to give about 3 illustrat- After our first cruise, we signed up with a “talent ed Power Point shows of only 45 minutes each in a week agency,” Sixth Star Entertainment. Our contact, Paul in exchange for a free cruise for the speaker and a guest. DiFillipi, lets us know about potential cruises, from Ca- My wife and I have explored many different Caribbean ribbean to Alaska, from Mediterranean to the Baltic that islands, seen Bermuda several times, cruised the Norway need speakers. We must provide several suggested pro- Fjords, the Baltic Sea, visited British and Irish ports and grams we can give, which he uses to get us booked as On enjoyed Transatlantic voyages. Board Program Personalities. As our “agent,” for only More than 100 cruise ships of Carnival, Royal Ca- $65 per night, we are placed on cruises we want to take. ribbean, Celebrity, Princess, Cunard, Norwegian Cruise As a speaker, you must get yourself and guest to the lines sail every week. More than 200,000 passengers departure port and back home, plus pay expected tips to want lively entertainment, including previews of ‘ports- waiters and room stewards on board. Otherwise, your of-call’ so they get the most out of their cruises. For a gracious room, all meals and entertainment on board, ac- Baltic Cruise, we provide beautifully illustrated pre- cess to ports of call visits are yours in exchange for your views of ports, such as Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm, talks. As we approach 80, we’re enjoying this affordable Helsinki, St. Petersburg. With limited photos, I emailed way to see the world, meeting fascinating passengers and Tourist Boards at all countries and cities. They were very expanding our Internet friendships with really wonderful cooperative because they want passengers to go ashore people. You can do it, too. and shop. Therefore, they gave me free access to some For more details, you can reach OPC member Allan of the best photos they had. From those, I built my on- Swenson at [email protected].
(Continued From Page 5) Tokyo bureau. Lubman was a stringer Managing Editor and Foreign Editor, after a decade in Beijing for The Washington Post as a correspondent and staff writer for Time and Time during the 1989 student democracy International. Ratnesar is the author of Tear Down This movement and Tiananmen Square Wall: A City, A President, and the Speech That Ended crackdown, and then as a reporter in the Cold War. the UPI Beijing bureau. She worked subsequently as a reporter in The ASSOCIATE Wall Street Journal’s Los Angeles Brian Byrd is a program officer bureau, as a reporter and Senior for the New York State Health Editor at the San Jose Mercury News, and as Asia Editor Foundation, overseeing the Foun– at Newsweek International. dation’s $3 million Special Projects Fund. Before joining the Foundation, Minky Worden is an enthusiastic Byrd was the director for community longtime member of the OPC, partnerships in the New York and past member of the board. As office of CARE, an international Director of Global Initiatives for humanitarian organization with Human Rights Watch, Worden programs in 87 countries. At CARE, he initiated the develops international advocacy design, implementation, integration and oversight of campaigns, edits books, and partnership and communications strategies. Before that, monitors crises, wars, human rights he was the Deputy Director for membership affairs at abuses and political developments the Council on Foreign Relations. Byrd spent eight years around the world. She previously served as HRW’s Media as the Assistant Director for communications with the Director, as an adviser to Democratic Party chairman Rockefeller Foundation. He is currently a member of Martin Lee in Hong Kong, and as a speechwriter at the OPC’s program planning committee. Justice Department in Washington, D.C. She is the editor of The Unfinished Revolution on the global fight for Sarah Lubman is a partner at Brunswick Group, an women’s rights; the editor of a book on reform in China, international corporate communications firm. Prior to China’s Great Leap, and co-editor of Torture. Worden joining Brunswick in 2005, she worked for 17 years as is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a journalist, starting off as a night editor in ABC News speaks Cantonese and German.
OPC Bulletin • July/August 2012 • Page 6 PEOPLE... by Susan Kille [email protected]
OPC SCHOLARS u BEIJING: The Chinese govern- Several 2012 Overseas Press ment blocked access to Bloomberg Club Foundation internship winners Abigail Pesta, an OPC mem- and BusinessWeek websites on June are already on the ground in various ber and editorial director of Women 29 and blocked internet searches and bureaus around the globe. in the World for Newsweek and The references to Xi Jinping, the coun- Roy Rowan winner BeieBei Bao Daily Beast, earned two awards in try’s presumed next leader. The ac- and Theo Wilson winner Jia Feng June. She received a Jane Cunning- tions followed a Bloomberg report are working for Reuters in China; ham Croly Award for Excellence in on the wealth amassed by Xi’s ex- Bao in Shanghai and Feng in Bei- Journalism Covering Issues of Con- tended family. China has repeatedly jing. cern to Women from the General blocked sensitive stories. Two days Lauren Zumbach, who won the Federation of Women’s Clubs for earlier, the Twitter accounts of The Kendrick internship, is with Forbes her Daily Beast story “How a Blog- New York Times were suspended for India in Mumbai. ger Blocked Sex Slavery.” She is the several hours after the launch of an Rachel Will, winner of the Jer- first two-time winner of the award, online Chinese language version of ry Flint Internship for International named after the pioneering journal- the newspaper. In May, China ex- Reporting, is with Reuters in Kuala ist who founded the club. Pesta also pelled OPC member Melissa Chan, Lumpur. Her winning essay, on Chi- won a feature reporting award for an Al Jazeera correspondent. na’s stadium diplomacy, can be seen her Marie Claire story “The Acci- in its expanded form, in the summer dental Sex Offender.” CARACAS: Globovision TV, a issue of World Policy Journal. Fol- frequent critic of Venezuelan Presi- lowing her internship, Will plans to PRESS FREEDOM dent Hugo Chavez, paid a $2.1-mil- move on to Phnom Penh to spend a ADDIS ABABA: In May, Ethio- lion fine on June 29, the day after the year on a Princeton in Asia Fellow- pian journalist Eskinder Nega was Supreme Court placed a seizure or- ship with the Phnom Penh Post. awarded the PEN/Barbara Gold- der on company assets worth nearly smith Freedom to Write Award. three times the original fine. The fine WINNERS Nega, however, is not free to write. was imposed in October 2011 after He was convicted June 27 on terror- media regulators said coverage of ism charges and could face the death prison riots that led to 20 deaths in penalty. Eskinder — along with 23 June 2011 “promoted hatred and in- other activists and writers — were tolerance for political reasons.” Glo- found guilty of conspiring to plot a bovision, the only anti-Chavez chan- revolt. nel still on the air, has three pending Eskinder has been jailed since appeals seeking to challenge the September after he published an on- fine, but courts have rejected two line article that questioned arrests other appeals. under Ethiopia’s sweeping anti- Zarganar, right, collects his prize. terror legislation. He is among 11 COLOMBO: The United States independent Ethiopian journalists and European Union raised concerns PARIS: Reporters Without Bor- and bloggers charged with terrorism over media freedom in Sri Lanka ders (RSF) on June 14 was able to since 2011. after police on June 29 raided and present Zarganar, a Burmese blog- closed two news websites, srilanka- ger, comedian and actor, with the BAGHDAD: After an outcry by mirror.com and srilankaxnews.com, press freedom prize in the “Cyber- press freedom advocates, Iraq sus- and arrested eight journalists and dissident” category that it awarded pended orders to close 44 radio and an office assistant. The group was in December 2008 while he was in television operations, including the released the next day when a judge prison. He was arrested in June 2008 BBC and Voice of America, on the ruled that police had failed to pro- after talking to foreign reporters grounds that they lacked permits. duce evidence of wrongdoing. Sri about the then military government’s The decision was rescinded when Lanka is under pressure to address management of relief operations af- the regulatory agency said it would rights issues after the United Nations ter a cyclone. He was sentenced to give the targeted organizations more passed a U.S.-backed resolution in 35 years in prison under the Elec- time to pay outstanding fees and re- March urging the country to pros- tronics Act but released last October. new lapsed licenses. (Continued on Page 8)
OPC Bulletin • July/August 2012 • Page 7 (Continued From Page 7) mer general known for spearheading malicious reports while giving soci- ecute war criminals. The Committee the capture of Shining Path leader ety the benefit of unfettered investi- to Protect Journalists (CPJ) ranks Sri Abimael Guzmán Reynoso. The case gative reporting. Lanka as one of the most repressive stems from an article by More link- nations for the press. ing Vidal to a family with alleged PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad connections to drug trafficking. and Tobago: At its annual confer- KARACHI: The Pakistani Tali- ence, the International Press Institute ban claimed responsibility for a NEW YORK: African reporters (IPI) on June 25 passed resolutions June 25 attack where four armed fleeing violence in their countries calling on international organiza- men opened fire on the offices of make up nearly half of the 463 jour- tions to address journalists’ safety; Aaj News, a private television sta- nalists forced into exile over the past the Mexican government to end tion. Two employees of the station five years, according a CPJ report re- impunity for the killers of journal- were injured. A Taliban spokesman leased June 19. In “Journalists in Ex- ists; the Ethiopian government to told the BBC that the attack was in ile,” CPJ reported that more than a stop using anti-terror laws to jail response to critical comments by Aaj quarter of the 57 journalists who fled journalists; Turkey to respect media about the militants and the station’s their homes since June 2011 came freedom; South Africa to scrap its failure to accommodate Taliban from East Africa. Somalia, Syria and “Secrecy Bill;” and all governments views. Pakistan led the list of places fled, to respect the right of journalists to followed by Iran, Eritrea, Ethiopia, protect sources and work with clas- Ecuador, Kenya, China, Nigeria and sified information. Also at the meet- Rwanda. ing, special envoys from the U.N., the Organization for Security and u Co-operation in Europe, the Orga- nization of American States, and the The OPC Freedom of the Press African Commission on Human and committee seldom has occasion to Peoples’ Rights issued a joint dec- write to the Vatican, but it did so laration calling on governments to June 4 after the Catholic bureaucra- treat “crimes against freedom of ex- Police in Colquiri, La Paz, where two cy filed a criminal libel suit against pression” as a special category under radio stations were attacked. Gianluigi Nuzzi, an Italian journal- criminal law and to provide journal- ist whose book, Your Holiness: The ists and other news providers with Secret Papers of Benedict XVI, ex- Dynamite explosions better protection. The conference LA PAZ: poses corruption and conspiracies at at three community radio stations opened with a roll call of 72 jour- high levels of the Vatican. The book in Bolivia caused the stations to go nalists who had been killed in 2012, is based on leaked documents and off the air. No one was injured. One which is on pace to be the deadliest whistleblowers; the Pope’s butler, station airs call-in programs with year for journalists since IPI began who has been arrested, is suspected farmers and peasants expressing keeping records 15 years ago. of being one source. In writing Arch- grievances with the government. The bishop Angelo Becciu, the Vatican’s other stations are in a mining region: TRIPOLI: Libya’s Supreme secretary of state, Larry Martz and Court overturned a law that crimi- one is affiliated with miners em- Kevin McDermott point out that nalized the glorification of former ployed by the state mining company criminal libel is an outmoded and leader Muammar el-Qaddafi, his re- and the other is owned by an inde- counterproductive way of punish- gime, his ideas or his sons. The court pendent mining cooperative. Miners ing leaks, and that civil penalties are ruled June 15 that the law, approved from the two groups have clashed enough to protect against false or over control of a mine. in May by the National Transitional Council’s Legal Committee, was un- LIMA: Two Peruvian journalists constitutional. were convicted June 5 on defama- tion charges. Juan Carlos Tafur, ed- MURDERS itor of Diario 16, and Roberto More Byron Baldeón, an Ecuador- Chávez, a reporter for the paper, ian photojournalist who witnessed were sentenced to two-year suspend- a theft in which police are the main ed prison sentences and ordered each suspects, was shot and killed July 1 to pay damages of about $22,000 to Gianluigi Nuzzi during a outside his home by two men on a Antonio Ketín Vidal Herrera, a for- presentation of his book. motorcycle, according to his editor.
OPC Bulletin • April 2012 • Page 8 as neighbors arrived after hearing can Lawyer Media’s Miami-based shouts for help. RSF said Uddin’s Daily Business Review newspaper coverage of a drug trafficking ring chain, executive business editor of had brought death threats. The Miami Herald and editorial di- Seven people, including a busi- rector of Primedia’s 140-publication nessman and a police officer were Media Central division in New York. arrested June 12 by state police in- He made headlines in 2009 when he vestigating the April 23 murder of invited Jayson Blair, the disgraced the Brazilian journalist and blog- New York Times reporter, to be the Body of photojournalist Byron ger Décio Sá, who was gunned down keynote speaker at a media ethics Baldeon who was shot to death. in a bar in São Luis. It seems likely conference. that the killing was related to his An autopsy showed the freelance work since the main suspects had BOSTON: OPC member Jason photographer was shot nine times at been criticized Sá, who ran his own Pontin, editor in chief and publisher close range, said Henry Holguin, blog and also worked as a political of MIT’s Technology Review in June editor-in-chief of Extra newspaper. journalist for the daily O Estado de wrote of the huge task ahead as his Baldeón had recently covered the Maranhão. 112-year-old publication begins a theft of a container of television sets, transition that will reach “a kind of which he had happened to witness. UPDATES climax” in October with a new print Armed with the photos he took of the BATON ROUGE: OPC mem- publication, website design and even theft, he gave a statement to the pub- ber John Maxwell Hamilton, ex- a new name. While print magazines lic prosecutor. An investigation led ecutive vice-chancellor and provost will continue, he wrote, “… people to the arrest of three police officers as well as professor of journalism at will be able to read everything we and two other people. Louisiana State University, plans to publish free of charge on the web, and Three journalists and four guards take a fellowship at the Wilson Cen- we’ll publish nothing first in print.” died June 25 when gunmen in Syria ter in Washington this fall where he attacked the headquarters of al-Ikh- will work on a book about the Com- NEW YORK: Dow Jones is clos- bariya TV, a pro-government chan- mittee on Public Information, which ing the print edition of SmartMoney nel south of Damascus, news reports was set up during World War I by the and laying off most of its staff as it said. Earlier in June, two al-Ikhbari- U.S. government in an effort to ma- converts to a digital-only version. ya employees were shot and seri- nipulate American public opinion. Editor-In-Chief Jonathan Dahl, an ously wounded by gunmen in Haffa OPC board member, and two dozen during clashes between government BERKELEY: Edward Was- other staff members are losing their troops and insurgents. Rebels deny serman, currently the John S. and jobs in July, after they produce one they target the media. Syria severely James L. Knight Foundation pro- more issue. “It’s always a surprise restricts independent news media, fessor of journalism ethics at Wash- or a shock when it actually happens, making it difficult to gain a credible ington and Lee University, has but what are you going to do?” Dahl account of events on the ground. Ear- been named dean-designate of the told the New York Post. lier in the month, RSF condemned Graduate School the deaths of two citizen journalists of Journalism at u killed in Homs and Al-Qassir while the University of trying to cover the government’s California Berke- On July 2, Lynda Hammes be- continuing crackdown. ley. Wasserman is came publisher of Foreign Affairs, Jamal Uddin, a correspondent of scheduled to start the bimonthly published by the Jessore-based Bangla daily Gramer January 1, but he Council on Foreign Relations, suc- Kagoj, was stabbed and hacked to said his decision Wasserman ceeding David Kellogg, who retired death June 15 by a group of men in is contingent on after 25 years. Hammes had been a market. A police office told report- being eligible for tenure. A commit- the magazine’s deputy publisher and ers that the leader of a drug-running tee will make that determination by director of digital strategy. During syndicate and 10 henchmen kid- fall. Wasserman is a veteran newspa- Kellogg’s tenure, the magazine tri- napped Uddin from a tea stall around per editor and writer with a doctor- pled in revenue and nearly doubled 11 p.m. and took him to a nearby ate in media politics and economics in circulation to 175,000, including place where they gouged out one of from the London School of Econom- print, digital editions, and versions his eyes, slashed veins in his legs ics. Among other positions, he was for digital readers. and hacked him. The attackers fled CEO and editor in chief of Ameri- (Continued on Page 10)
OPC Bulletin • July/August 2012 • Page 9 TOKYO: To comply with a new in Euromoney in go into combat zones.,” New York law, the Foreign Correspondents’ September 1987. Times spokesperson Eileen Murphy Club of Japan (FCCJ) plans to out- In 1995 he pub- said. “Anthony was an experienced, source its restaurant and bars. The lished Blindside, motivated correspondent. He decid- change will allow the club to ob- in which he argued ed whether, how and when to enter tain the status of a “public interest” that, despite large Syria, and was told by his editors, entity, Georges Baumgartner ex- post-crash bank- including on the day of the trip, that plained on the club’s website. ing problems, Ja- Fingleton he should not make the trip if he felt “Under new laws we will either pan was rapidly it was not advisable for any reason.” be equated with a tennis club (serv- lengthening its lead over the U.S. Tyler Hicks, The New York Times ing only the interests of our mem- in advanced manufacturing and was photographer who carried Shadid’s bers) or recognized as an organiza- destined to enjoy trade surpluses as body to Turkey, told the Los Angeles tion that serves the public interest,” U.S. trade sank deeper into deficit. Times that Shadid was the one pres- wrote Baumgartner, the correspon- His 1999 book In Praise of Hard suring editors to make the trip hap- dent for Swiss national radio who in Industries anticipated the U.S. dot- pen. “Anthony was very passionate June was elected to a third term as com crash of 2000. OPC members about what was happening to the FCCJ president. “The latter requires can reach Fingleton at efingleton@ civilian population in Syria,” Hicks us to prove that more than half our gmail.com. said. “In this, no one can force you, expenditures are in the public inter- as a journalist, to go to a place like est. But if you look at our books, it that. There’s no amount of pressure is hard not to conclude that the FCCJ or money — nothing can make you is a bar that dabbles in journalism.” go into that kind of situation except a According to The Japan Times, personal drive and want to go there... the FCCJ spends about 22 percent the only time I heard Anthony ex- of its income on public interest press any frustration was...due to all activities that include organizing of the delays.” news conferences, maintaining a library and awarding scholarships. Viola Drath and Albrecht Muth in PEOPLE REMEMBERED Much of the remainder supports a June 2001. Ghassan Tueni, a Lebanese jour- money-losing food and beverage nalist and statesmen considered by Viola service. The FCCJ, which is run WASHINGTON D.C.: many the greatest Arab journalist of by membership fees, plans to apply Drath, an OPC member, who was his time, died June 8 in Beirut. He for the public interest entity status found dead in her Georgetown home was 86. Tuenim spent six decades in November. To achieve that goal, on August 11, 2011, and her hus- as editor of an- Club members voted to close the band, Albrecht Muth, were the su- Nahar, an inde- restaurant and the bars as soon as jects of a July 8 article in The New pendent newspaper August — whether a company is York Times magazine. Muth was founded by his fa- found to take over the bars and the charged with her murder. ther, while leading restaurant by then or not. u a parallel life as a u diplomat who rep- Ed Shadid, a cousin to the late resented his war- After 27 years here, financial Anthony Shadid, spoke on June 23 torn country in the United Nations journalist and author Eamonn Fin- at the Arab-American Anti-Discrim- from 1977 to 1982 and also served gleton is returning to Ireland, the ination Committee’s convention and as a cabinet minister and as a par- land of his birth. He worked as an said that Anthony had heated argu- liament member. By his own count, editor for the Financial Times in ments with his editors at The New Tueni published more than 5,000 London in the 1970s and Forbes in York Times just prior to his final trip editorials and his dream of a secular, New York in the early 1980s, before into Syria. Ed said Anthony told his independent homeland was widely moving to Tokyo in 1985 as Asia wife Nada that were he to die, The considered a harbinger of last year’s editor of the banking magazine Eu- Times would be to blame. Arab Spring uprisings. He was jailed romoney. The New York Times responded for opposing the Syrian occupation A long-standing OPC member, he to Politico’s report saying it did not of Lebanon and in the 1970s pub- predicted the Tokyo financial crash pressure Anthony into Syria. “The lished an-Nahar from Paris rather in a famously prescient analysis Times does not pressure reporters to than submit to Syrian censorship.
OPC Bulletin • July/August 2012 • Page 10 Journalists’ Safety in Mexico in Limbo Post Election by Susan Kille Said’s mother said she heard men Mexico is one of the most dan- argue with her son about his work gerous places to be a reporter and before the attack. Said is recovering. press freedom groups are supportive Meanwhile, Zane Alejandro of a constitutional amendment ap- Plemmons Rosales, a freelance proved June 6 that gives authorities journalist, has been missing since the power to investigate and pros- May 21, when he left a hotel in the ecute crimes committed against free- Mexican border town of Nuevo Lar- dom of expression and information. edo to photograph a shootout taking New legislation and changes to place nearby. The same night, two federal procedural and penal codes Enrique Pena Nieto speaks to interna- individuals went to his hotel and re- tional reporters in Mexico City the day are needed before the amendment, after he was elected Mexico’s president. moved his belongings. The hotel has which has been fought over since since closed. Plemmons, who used to 2008, can be employed. PEN International said the fed- be crime reporter for the daily La I, has dual U.S. and eral government will do a better job investigating and Mexican citizenship and normally resides in San Anto- prosecuting murders and terror attacks than states “where nio, Texas. the Mexican authorities are under-resourced, often inept, After a series of letters to Calderón condemning mur- and at their most corruptible: bribery and threats ensure ders and terrorism against journalists, OPC’s Freedom of that crimes aren’t investigated too thoroughly.” the Press committee on June 26 congratulated the outgo- Mexico elected Enrique Peña Nieto as president July ing president on extending federal protection to Stepha- 1, rejecting Felipe Calderón’s bid for a second term. In nia Cardoso, a crime reporter from the state of Coahuila the past five and a half years, Calderón’s war on drug who disappeared in May along with her 2-year-old son. cartels has cost about 60,000 Mexican lives and has She surfaced in a phone call to a friend, explaining that proven deadly for journalists writing about the cartels. It she felt in great danger, and Cardoso responded by ex- remains to be seen how Peña Nieto will address the drug tending federal protection. war raging across Mexico and the violence and harass- “Offering Federal protection for Cardoso and her ment reporters face. family is an important step toward increasing safety for Carlos Lauría, senior program coordinator of the reporters and editors on the front lines,” the OPC said in Americas for the Committee to Protect Journalists, said a letter signed by Robert Dowling and Larry Martz. “We the amendment was “a first step to stop impunity in the urge you to direct full Federal powers toward cleaning killings of Mexican journalists.” CPJ counts 48 journal- up recent murders, showing through prosecutions that ists as murdered or missing since Calderón took office in killers are no longer immune when trying to silence the December 2006. press.” The death toll grew June 14 when the body of Victor As the Bulletin was going to Manuel Baez Chino was found in the center of Xalapa, press, police in Mexico had not the capital of Veracruz state. Baez, who was kidnapped completed an investigation into outside his office the previous night, covered crime for the death of Armando Monta- the national newspaper Milenio and for his Reporteros no, an intern for The Associated Policiacos website. A front page article in The New York Press in Mexico City. Montano Times on June 22 focused on the death of Baez in linking was found dead in an elevator attacks on journalists to self-censorship and to reporters shaft on June 30. He was not on Armando Montano who have left Veracruz, a gulf coast state that is a battle- assignment when he died and his death has not been tied ground for the Zetas and Sinaloa drug cartels. to his work. The U.S. embassy is monitoring the inves- Baez was the fourth journalist in Veracruz to be killed tigation. in two months. A message attached to his corpse read: At 22, Montano had built an impressive resume. He “This is what happens to those who betray us and want had internships with The New York Times, The Seattle to be clever, sincerely the Zetas.” CPJ reports that seven Times and The Colorado Independent, an online news ser- journalists and one former journalist were murdered in vice. He won scholarships from the National Press Club, Veracruz in the past year. No arrests have been made. the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and the Three arrests have been made, however, in the June Freedom Forum. Montana, who in lived Colorado Springs, 24 stabbing of Rafael Said Hernández, a photographer Colorado, graduated this spring from Grinnell College for the magazine Revista Tucán, in Oaxaca in southwest- and had planned to enter a master’s degree program in ern Mexico. Reporters Without Borders reported that journalism at the University of Barcelona in the fall.
OPC Bulletin • July/August 2012 • Page 11 about his life from its humble begin- New Books nings to the heights of his profes- NORTH AMERICA sion in the folksy, eloquent and often T 80, DAN RATHER IS STILL poignant style of his previous best- A reporting the news on AXS selling memoirs, The Camera Never TV’s weekly show Dan Rather Re- Blinks (1977), I Remember (1991), ports and he is again in the news and The Camera Never Blinks Twice with the publication of a (1994). He traces his new memoir. In Rather passion to become a Glowczewska Outspoken: My Life in journalist to his up- past quarter century by renowned the News [Grand Central bringing in a news- photographers such as Helmut Publishing, May], Rather savvy family. Newton, David LaChapelle and examines his dismissal Rather, an OPC Brigitte Lacombe. Luc Sante from CBS, the triumph of member, has this to wrote the book’s introduction and breaking the Abu Ghraib say about corporate the images are accompanied by es- story, the controversy of consolidation: first, says from notable authors such as the George W. Bush Air he quotes Thomas Paul Theroux and Simon Win- National Guard story and Jefferson: “The only chester plus maps and annotations much more as he settles security of all is in a by the magazine’s editors and the scores while also handing free press” and then photographers themselves. The large out praise. he notes that “when format book includes 25 gatefold Interviews on his book tour have you have a press that has become images. focused on his thoughts of the dam- compliant to politicians, owned by age to democracy brought by corpo- Glowczewska has been editor in corporations, and staffed by people chief of Condé Nast Traveler since rate consolidation of media and his who only want to entertain and obey criticism of CBS, where he spent January 2005 and executive editor their corporate masters, the plan 24 years as anchor of the evening since 1992. She has been an editor fails.” news — a record unlikely to be bro- at the magazine since Harold Evans ken. The book, written with Digby launched it in 1987 with a simple LARA GLOWCZEWSKA, Diehl, does come out strong on K but for the time revolutionary prin- those points but Rather also writes editor in chief of Condé Nast ciple: “Truth in Travel.” Glowcze- Traveler and a former OPC board wska has translated three books by member, has written the foreword to Polish writer Ryszard Kapuscinski, Condé Nast Traveler Photographs: including his final book, Travels 25th Anniversary Collection [As- With Herodotus, published in 2007. souline, March.] The book showcases stunning OPC Election photographs from the magazine’s — by Susan Kille
Enclosed is a ballot for Overseas Press Club of America the 2012 election. 40 West 45 Street Return it by August 21 New York, NY 10036 USA in the colored envelope provided. See election slate on pages 3 to 6.
Annual Meeting August 22 6 p.m.
40 West 45 Street
OPC Bulletin • July/August 2012 • Page 12