Reporter wins top honor for Mideast work By Soledad Santiago | The New Mexican November 7, 2006
The Santa Fe-based Lannan Foundation on Monday announced that journalist Robert Fisk is this year's winner of the Lifetime Achievement Prize for Cultural Freedom, which the foundation has awarded annually since 1999. The prize includes a cash award of $350,000 and is intended both to highlight and facilitate his work. Fisk, a British foreign correspondent, has been based in the Middle East for three decades and is fluent in Arabic. Since 1988, he has served as Middle East correspondent for The Independent of London. He earlier covered the struggles in Ireland for The Times of London. Fisk is the author of four books, the most recent of which is The Great War or Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East -- an eyewitness account of the suffering of civilians and combatants in the ongoing wars that dominate the Middle East. He is known for his hands-on coverage, his historical analysis tracing Middle East conflicts back to colonialism and his insistence that the function of journalism is to challenge governmental authority. "Fisk doesn't work from a hotel room," said J. Patrick Lannan Jr., the foundation's president. "Fisk enters bloodstained terrain to tell real people's stories and thereby provides us with a picture of what's actually happening in the Middle East. Without this kind of nuanced understanding, we can't expect change." Previous winners of the lifetime achievement award include Uruguayan journalist Eduardo Galeano, anti-nuclear activist Helen Caldicott and scholar Cornel West, who teaches religion and African American studies at Princeton. Seven additional cultural freedom prizes totaling $1,050,000 were awarded to journalists, writers and activists from the United States, the United Kingdom, Mexico and Columbia. "Cultural freedom is threatened by all forms of economic exploitation. That's why this year's list ranges from journalists and writers to activists in areas ranging from environmental law, labor and human rights to language activists," Lannan said. Winners include author David Barsamian, the founder and director of the Colorado-based Alternative Radio; linguist and advocate for the revival of American Indian languages, Leanne Hinton; human rights and labor activist Charles Kernaghan; investigative reporter and managing editor of the corporate watchdog CorpWatch, Pratap Chatterjee; staff attorney for the Mexican Center for Environmental Law, Patricio Martín; Hugo Morales, executive director of Radio Bilingüe in the California's San Joaquin Valley; and noted Colombian exile, journalist and author, Fernando Garavito. Garavito currently lives in Santa Fe where, with the help of PEN New Mexico, he became a fellow of the North American Cities of Asylum Network. He had been a Spanish-language columnist for The New Mexican's "El Nuevo," but his last column appeared Monday . "These choices show that we at the foundation are also learning about all the ramifications of the pressure against diversity," Lannan said. The Lannan Foundation was founded in 1960 by J. Patrick Lannan Sr., an entrepreneur, financier and father of the current president. It relocated to Santa Fe from Los Angeles in 1997 and in addition to the cultural freedom prize and fellowships, presents a popular Readings & Conversations program at which writers, poets and social activists read and discuss their work before an audience. ROCK ON!! ____________________________________________________________________________________ Cheap talk? Check out Yahoo! Messenger's low PC-to-Phone call rates. http://voice.yahoo.com -------------------------------------------------- Ikatan Alumni SMA Negeri 1 Bekasi, forum untuk menambah teman, saudara, sahabat, dan [.....]. Jika ingin berhenti menerima email dari sma1bks, kirim email ke [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ingin menerima email dari sma1bks, kirim email ke [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sma1bks/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sma1bks/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
