2010 Annual Report We Will Illuminate Dark Places And, with a Deep Sense of Responsibility, Interpret These Troubled Times
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2010 Annual Report We will illuminate dark places and, with a deep sense of responsibility, interpret these troubled times. Joseph Pulitzer III (1913-1993) Founded in 2006, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting is a Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting leader in sponsoring the independent journalism that media 1779 Massachusetts Ave, NW organizations are increasingly less able to undertake on their Suite 615 own. The Pulitzer Center’s mission is to raise the standard of Washington, DC 20036 coverage of global affairs and to do so in a way that engages 202-332-0982 the broad public and government policy-makers. http://pulitzercenter.org The Pulitzer Center is a bold initiative, in keeping with its sponsorship by a family whose name for more than a century has been a watchword for journalistic independence, integrity and courage. The Center is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. TABLE OF CONTENTS Letter from Board President and Executive Director 2-3 2010 Reporting Projects 4-9 Education and Outreach 10-12 Downstream: A Pulitzer Center Focus on Water 13-14 Awards and Recognition 15 Donors 16 Staff Listing and Credits 17 Financial Summary 18 Contact Information 19 Letter from Board President and Executive Director For the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, 2010 was a and NewsHour, and on Sudan, in collaboration with breakthrough year. We launched 48 projects, among them NewsHour, The Washington Post, and many other news major collaborations with news media and educational partners. We doubled the size of our staff. And, not Lord’s Resistance Army in central Africa, in partnership with Human Rights Watch, and multiple projects on the war in individuals and foundations that recognize the Center as Afghanistan. Jennifer Redfearn’s video on climate refugees an increasingly important producer—and innovator—in coverage of under-reported systemic issues across the nominated for an Oscar. The radio version of LiveHopeLove, globe. our project on the human face of HIV/AIDS, won a Gracie for outstanding radio documentary. Marco Vernaschi’s work Our 2010 reporting was characterized by breadth of general news category of the World Press Photo Contest. partnerships. Our attention on Haiti in the wake of last The Pulitzer Center received the National Press January’s earthquake is a case in point. We had covered Foundation’s award for excellence in online journalism. that country extensively already; the broadcast story that we commissioned as part of our Fragile States series aired on In 2010 the Pulitzer Center again made educational PBS NewsHour the night before the earthquake. We then outreach a top priority, reaching out to schools and commissioned four additional projects, on topics ranging universities across the country to explore together new from reconstruction and education to HIV/AIDS and with ways of engaging the broadest possible audience in the placement on multiple print, broadcast and web outlets. The global issues our journalists report. One example is our new work culminated in a series for NewsHour and USA Today partnership with the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at and in Voices of Haiti, a stunning web presentation of poetry, photography and music that captures the drama of Haitians on global health issues by two Nieman fellows each year. struggling to rebuild their lives. The George Washington University, Boston University and Davidson College joined our Campus Consortium, adding to a network of strong academic partners that already includes Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Kent State University, Washington University in St. Louis, and Ohio University. Nearly 5,500 high school and middle school students had the opportunity in 2010 to engage Pulitzer Center journalists directly, through classroom visits and online follow-ups. In St. Louis presentations on water and sanitation became the springboard for student video projects, demonstrating what it is like to carry 40 pounds of water for hours at a time We mounted similarly ambitious efforts on coverage of water and sanitation, in collaboration with National Geographic drinking water. -2- Letter from Board President and Executive Director In Chicago students produced videos exploring the and Dan McCarey consulting on web design—was already local dimensions of global issues presented by Pulitzer strong. Now it is stronger still. We strengthened our board journalists—from food insecurity and women and children of directors too, with the addition of Joel Motley. He brings in crisis to homophobia and stigma. In New York students at three public high schools worked with our journalists of Human Rights Watch and the Oppenheimer Funds. to explore water and Haiti, learning not just about those issues but also how they were reported—or not—in the We are grateful to the growing number of foundations and news media. At conferences in Milwaukee, Philadelphia individuals that have come to view the Pulitzer Center as and Honolulu, Pulitzer Center staff shared our Downstream an important vehicle for public engagement in global affairs. water-reporting Gateway to give students a vivid introduction The MAC AIDS Fund, the Stanley Foundation, Humanity to how water and sanitation issues affect us all. United and the Wallace Global Fund are among those who share our commitment to objective, independent journalism. The McCormick Foundation, the Longview Foundation, the We are grateful to the growing number Eli Lilly Group and the Laird Norton Family Foundation have helped us take that work to schools and local communities. of foundations and individuals that We hope that in the months and years to come others will have come to view the Pulitzer Center follow the example they have set. as an important vehicle for public At a time when so many news organizations have retreated engagement in global affairs. from coverage of the world it is essential that we identify new ways of fostering the informed citizenry on which our democracy depends. This is an effort that requires the leveraging of resources, deep and multiple collaborations, The rapidly growing scale of our operations was thanks in and a journalism that goes beyond coverage of the moment part to capacity-building grants from the Kendeda Fund to build instead a sustained issues-awareness campaign. and from individual donors that enabled us to make major These were the hallmarks of our initiatives in 2010. It is an approach at the heart of all our work. We believe that it is in staff. Tom Hundley, the former chief European profoundly in the public interest. correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, joined us as senior editor. Kate Seche, formerly principal at an inner-city Emily Rauh Pulitzer, Board President Chicago middle school, became our national educational Jon Sawyer, Executive Director coordinator. Summer Marion and Peter Sawyer were hired as special projects coordinators and Maura Youngman as new-media strategist. Our team—with Nathalie Applewhite as managing director, Ann Peters as director of outreach/ development, Christina Paschyn as projects coordinator, -3- Projects 2010 In 2010 the Pulitzer Center launched 48 reporting projects the U.S. government spends each year to boost Cuba’s and had dozens of existing projects disseminate new work. beleaguered pro-democracy movement is having an impact. The Center published over 350 original dispatches on its web channel Untold Stories and had over 200 media Mexico: The Struggle for Health. Samuel Loewenberg placements of Pulitzer Center-supported work in news reports from two of Mexico’s poorest states, Chiapas and outlets across the country. Oaxaca, on the social and political forces that impact the health of indigenous communities. CENTRAL/NORTH AMERICA AND CARIBBEAN Haiti: After the Quake. Lisa Armstrong, Kwame Dawes Glass Closet: Sex, Stigma and HIV/AIDS in Jamaica. and Andre Lambertson revisit Port–au-Prince and environs Micah Fink, Lisa Biagiotti and Gabrielle Weiss explore how where the tent cities erected during the first weeks after the Jamaica’s harsh anti-sodomy laws and homophobic social quake have taken on an air of permanence. They also look currents make it hard for public health officials to control the at how Haiti, once at the forefront of the struggle to stop spread of HIV/AIDS. the spread of HIV/AIDS, now has to cope with the near- collapse of its healthcare system. The Pulitzer Center also Nunavut, Canada: Hope on Ice. Linda Matchan and commissioned a special report, Voices from Haiti, that uses Michele McDonald report on a remote arctic community that poetry, photography and music to take a deeper look at the formed a circus troupe in a bid to claw its way out of poverty Haitian catastrophe. and despair. Haiti’s Reconstruction: Building Back Better. William Blood Trade: Memphis and the Mexican Drug War. Wheeler and Justin Thomas Ostensen chronicle the Memphis Commercial Appeal reporter Daniel Connolly international effort to help Haiti rise from the rubble. paints a vivid picture of what happens when the misery of America’s inner cities collides with the poverty and weak Dominican Republic: Life on the Margins. Stephanie institutions of the developing world. Hanes and Stephen Sapienza travel to the Dominican Republic where close to a million Haitians live in extreme SOUTH AMERICA poverty—a situation that will likely worsen in the months Colombia: Mining Fever in Paradise. Anna-Katarina after the earthquake as many more cross the border in Gravgaard and Lorenzo Morales trek into the Andes search of shelter and work. highlands where the government has to choose between guarding a unique ecosystem or boosting its economy with Cuba: Protecting Gitmo’s Environment. Lygia Navarra intensive mining. reports from the U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay where large swaths of wilderness are potentially some of the most Bolivia/Ecuador: Indigenous People Confront Global pristine nature refuges the Caribbean. Warming. Daniel Grossman and Ruxandra Guidi travel to South America where governments are beginning to Cuba: The Battle for Hearts and Minds.