For 31 years, the Courage in Journalism Awards have honored more than 100 brave women journalists from 56 countries who refuse to step aside or be silenced in their pursuit of the truth. In 2021, women journalists are facing new challenges: a global pandemic, civil social uprisings, growing distrust of the media and a swell of online violence. Join us to honor the women who have persisted against the odds to share their communities’ stories and open our eyes to injustice.
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Speakers
Christiane Amanpour
Christiane Amanpour is CNN's chief international anchor and host of the network's award-winning, flagship global affairs program "Amanpour," which also airs on PBS in the United States. She is based in the network's London bureau.
Her illustrious career in journalism spans more than three decades joining CNN in 1983. Amanpour rose through the organization becoming the network's leading international correspondent reporting on international crisis in the Gulf War, Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea, Palestinian territories, Iran, Sudan, Israel, Pakistan, Somalia, Rwanda, the Balkans, Egypt, Libya.
Amanpour has interviewed most of the top world leaders during her career and has received every major broadcast award, including an inaugural Television Academy Award, fourteen News and Documentary Emmys, four Peabody Awards, two George Polk Awards, three duPont-Columbia Awards and the Courage in Journalism Award, an Edward R. Murrow Award, the Sigma Delta Chi Award and ten honorary degrees.
She was inducted into the Cable Hall of Fame, Broadcast & Cable Hall of Fame and The Atlanta Press Club’s Hall of Fame. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, an honorary citizen of Sarajevo and a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for Freedom of the Press and the Safety of Journalists. Amanpour is a graduate of the University of Rhode Island.
Suzanne Malveaux
Award-winning journalist Suzanne Malveaux serves as CNN’s national correspondent, covering politics, national news, international events and culture. Previously, she co-anchored CNN’s Around The World and co-anchored the network’s Emmy-winning coverage of the revolution in Egypt and the network’s Peabody Award-winning coverage of the Arab Spring.
Malveaux also covered the White House for more than 10 years as a White House correspondent–covering Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama traveling to Europe, Africa, The Balkans, Latin America, Southeast Asia, Australia and the Middle East. She has interviewed all 5 living Presidents, and several First Ladies.
In March of 2012, Malveaux returned to Rwanda—the former civil war torn African nation she had covered 14 years ago with then President Clinton, and updated the reconciliation efforts. Later in October, she returned to South Africa where she interviewed the family of Nelson Mandela and covered Soweto “36 years out of the student uprising”. Years earlier, in 1998, she covered President Bill Clinton’s tour of Mandela’s prison cell at Robben Island, with the Civil Rights leader.
In September 2011, Malveaux embedded with U.S. troops in Afghanistan for the 10th anniversary of 9/11 where she led breaking news coverage of the Taliban’s terrorist attack on the U.S. Embassy there.
Malveaux was recently recognized by Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism for covering “One of the top 50 stories of the Century” for her reporting on then Senator Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. During that time Malveaux reported and crafted a 90 minute documentary on Senator Barack Obama, and served as a panelist questioning the candidates in the Democratic Presidential Primary Debate in Charlotte, North Carolina in Jan. 2008, and Democratic Presidential Debate in Las Vegas in Nov. 2007. She also played a key role in CNN’s Emmy-winning election coverage of 2006 and 2004.
Malveaux covered President Obama’s 2013 inauguration in Washington, D.C. and the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C.
In September 2005, Malveaux returned to her family’s hometown of New Orleans where she reported on the devastation and recovery following Hurricane Katrina. She was part of the coverage teams that earned CNN a Peabody Award for its Katrina reporting and a duPont Award for CNN’s coverage of the tsunami disaster in Southeast Asia.
Among the stories Malveaux has broken for CNN are: the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the plea deal of lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and White House personnel changes.
Before joining the network in May 2002, Malveaux was a correspondent for NBC News based in Chicago and Washington, D.C. During her tenure, she traveled the country covering breaking news for MSNBC reporting on 9/11, the Pentagon, politics, the 2000 Ballot recount, and Clinton’s impeachment trial.
Malveaux started as a general assignment reporter for WRC-TV in Washington, D.C., and WFXT-TV and New England Cable News in Boston. Before getting into the news business, Malveaux produced documentaries in Egypt and Kenya and worked on a one-hour documentary on the Great Depression with Boston-based Blackside Inc.
Malveaux has been named an Aspen Institute Henry Crown Fellow, an Aspen Global Leadership Network fellow, an Honorary Member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, and holds 3 Honorary Bachelor degrees.
She has participated in numerous panels at the Aspen Institute Ideas Festival and Brainstorming summits. She serves on the Board of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and the International Women’s Media Foundation.
Malveaux will be awarded with a Gracie Award from the Alliance for Women in May for her 2013 ALS series. She has also been recognized as “One of America’s Most Powerful Players Under 40″ by Black Enterprise, Ebony’s ”Outstanding Women in Marketing & Communications”, The Root.com 100’s “Most Influential Young African Americans”, and Essence Magazine’s “2009 Journalist of the Year”.
Malveaux is personally dedicated to promoting awareness and research for ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). She enjoys participating in marathons and triathlons.
Malveaux returned to Washington, D.C to better care for her mother, who suffers from ALS. Malveaux chronicled her mother’s battle against the disease in a series of CNN reports in 2013 (‘My Mother’s Journey with ALS’).
Malveaux earned a Bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and a Master’s degree in Journalism from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.
Elisa Lees Muñoz
Founded in 2002, Khabar Lahariya is an Indian newspaper led by a team of all-women Dalit reporters and editors, producing independent news in Uttar Predesh and Madhya Pradesh. With a hyper-local focus, Khabar Lahariya operates under the premise that “news in a last-mile village is news, deserving of the same attention as what happens in a city or town.” The newspaper seeks to brings a feminist voice to local media, interrogating and disrupting the status quo to uplift those traditionally marginalized in the media landscape. It has broken barriers to establish women as journalists in small towns and villages where newsmakers have long been men, upper caste, and well-connected to the political system. After almost 20 years of this work, Khabar Lahariya’s reporters are still the outliers, even as more and more young women step into the field. As rural Dalit women, the paper’s staff are pathbreakers across gender and caste, navigating myriad challenges and prejudices that have intensified through the years.
Elisa Lees Muñoz is the IWMF’s Executive Director. Elisa leads the organization to achieve its mission to support women journalists to develop their careers by providing training, tools and assistance so that they can work as safely as possible. She enhances the IWMF’s brand, and delivers the annual Courage in Journalism and Lifetime Achievement Awards and the Courage in Photojournalism Award. She is charged with growing the IWMF by expanding its programs into new geographies; introducing new initiatives such as Hostile Environments and First Aid Training (HEFAT); partnering with other organizations; and driving communications and outreach to our core constituents. Elisa has been a human rights activist since graduating from the University of Maryland with an MA degree in International Relations. Before joining the IWMF as Director of Programs, Elisa lead the Crimes of War Education Project and before that monitored the human rights of scientists for the American Association for the Advancement of Science and served as an election monitor for the OSCE in the Balkans.
“It is a privilege to lead an organization as unique as the IWMF. Supported by our Board; leaders in journalism, media and communications; we have the opportunity to improve the skills, security and lives of women journalists around the world. And, by doing so, enable their voices and those of whom they cover to be heard.”
Jeff Zucker
Jeff Zucker was named Chairman, WarnerMedia News and Sports in March, 2019. He has also served as President of CNN Worldwide since 2013.
Zucker oversees all of WarnerMedia’s live programming, including all divisions of CNN Worldwide and Turner Sports. At CNN, that includes the US television network, CNN International, HLN, and CNN’s digital properties. His sports portfolio includes Turner Sports, and Bleacher Report.
In Zucker’s eight years at CNN, he has overseen a dramatic turnaround of the global news network, driving it to its largest audiences ever and turning it into the most used digital news and information outlet in the world. He serves as the domestic channel’s managing editor, setting the daily news agenda across the platforms.
At Turner Sports he is responsible for programming acquisitions, production, marketing, league relations and sports ad sales. The Turner Sports portfolio consists of partnerships with the NBA, the NCAA for the Division One Men’s Basketball Championship, and Major League Baseball. It is also responsible for operating the digital media outlets NCAA.com, NBA.com, and operating NBA TV on behalf of the NBA.
Zucker has had one of the most storied careers in media. He took over NBC’s Today show at the age of 26 and re-invented the historic morning news program. That led to a 25-year career at NBC Universal that ultimately saw him become the company’s CEO. He also served as NBC’s Entertainment President and co-founded the online streaming service Hulu.
Prior to CNN, Zucker spent more than two decades at NBC Universal, where he rose through the ranks to become the company’s president and CEO from 2007 to 2011. He headed up the global media and entertainment company, which included the NBC broadcast network, its news and sports divisions and all of its cable properties (including MSNBC, CNBC, USA, Bravo, Oxygen and Syfy), Universal Pictures and the Universal Theme Parks. Prior to running all of NBCU, Zucker oversaw all of the company’s television properties from 2004 to 2007 and was the president of NBC Entertainment from December 2000 until May 2004.
Zucker’s ascent at NBC began in 1986 as a researcher for NBC Sports’ coverage of the 1988 Summer Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea. From 1986 to 1988, he traveled the world, compiling and writing background information for NBC Sports. In January 1989, he joined NBC News as a field producer for Today. That was followed by an eight-year tenure as executive producer of Today. Under his leadership, the show became the most-watched morning news program in America. Concurrent with his role at Today, he served as executive producer of NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw in February and March 1993.
An eleven-time Emmy Award winner, Zucker graduated from Harvard College in 1986 with a bachelor’s degree in American history. He served as president of The Harvard Crimson from 1985 to 1986. Born and raised in Miami, Zucker has four children and resides in New York City.
Awardees
Katsyaryna Andreyeva
Katsyaryna Andreyeva (Bakhvalava) was born in 1993 into a family of several generations of Minsk intellectuals. After Katsya graduated from gymnasium №23 in Minsk, she entered the Spanish faculty of Minsk State Linguistic University. In 2013 she enrolled in a volunteer program of the European Commission to Spain, where she spent two years. In 2014 she returned home. Since then, Katsyaryna has devoted herself entirely to journalism. She collaborated with RFE/RL and the Ukrainian project “Donbas. Realities”. Her work has been published in the newspaper “Narodnaya Volya” and the Russian Novaya Gazeta. In March 2017, she became a reporter for Belsat TV in Minsk. As a correspondent, she visited Ukraine and Spain. In co-authorship with Ihar Ilyash, Katsyaryna prepared several high-profile journalistic investigations, and in 2020 they published a documentary book, “Belarusian Donbas,” about the role of Belarusians in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Over the past year, the book had two editions. During the hot summer of 2020 in Belarus, Katsyaryna covered peaceful rallies, reporting live from the streets of Minsk. She was arrested on November 15 for broadcasting at a violent dispersal of a gathering in memory of murdered protester Raman Bandarenka. After the rally, armed riot police broke the door to the apartment where Katsyaryna and Darya were hiding. On November 20, they were charged under Part 1 of Article 342 of the Criminal Code (organization and preparation of actions that grossly violate public order). On February 18, 2021, the Frunzenski district court of Minsk sentenced Katsiaryna and Darya to two years of imprisonment. Twice (in 2017 and 2020), Katsiaryna was recognized as Belsat’s “Television Person of the Year”. She was also a laureate of the BAJ “Free Speech” contest. In 2020 she received the “The Hope of Freedom” award from the Lithuanian Association of Journalists. In 2021 Katsyaryna was nominated for the Dariusz Fikus Award by the Press Club of Poland and the Ales Lipay Award in Belarus.
Vanessa Charlot
Vanessa Charlot is a freelance photojournalist and documentary photographer whose work covers stories where race, identity, politics and economics intersect. She has worked throughout the United States, Caribbean and Southeast Asia. Her work has been commissioned by the New York Times, Gucci, Vogue, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, Oprah Magazine, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Apple, New York Magazine, Buzzfeed, Artnet News, among other national and international publications. She was recently awarded the Green Family Foundation Award, and was among those listed in New York Times’ 5 Art Accounts to Follow on Instagram Now. Vanessa’s extensive coverage of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) Movement in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, during the onset of the pandemic in American cities, garnered national attention and praise. In addition to BLM, she also covered the 57th anniversary of the March on Washington, former President Trump’s rallies in St. Louis, Missouri and Tulsa, Oklahoma. Her work, whether it’s covering BLM, Covid-19’s impact, gun laws or immigration, always added new voices and important perspectives to the conversation, pushing the culture forward to a more balanced and humane perspective of self and what is deemed other. Taking part in the IWMF’s Next Gen Safety Trainers, Vanessa is in a unique position as part of the selected cohort to take part in the training as our voice between the committee and those in training. Of the program, she says: “This project equips journalists with the capability to be conscious of how their identity impacts their safety within dynamic situations and for them to have the skills they need to keep themselves safe while sharing pertinent stories with the world.”
Darya Chultsova
Darya Chultsova was born in 1997 in Shklou. She graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology of Mahiliou State University, where her major was Journalism. Her journalistic career began two years ago. At first, she tried herself in reportage, but later she was more attracted to working with a camera. After the 2020 elections, Darya moved to Minsk. In the last few weeks prior to her arrest, Darya Chultsova worked with Katsyaryna Andreyeva during weekend protests in Minsk. On November 15, 2020, she was detained for broadcasting live a violent dispersal of a rally in memory of Raman Bandarenka. They were broadcasting live from the apartment on the 14th floor of a residential building, where the hosts had invited them. Armed riot police broke the door to the apartment and detained the girls. On November 20, they were charged under Part 1 of Article 342 of the Criminal Code (organization and preparation of actions that grossly violate public order). On February 18, 2021, the Frunzenski district court of Minsk sentenced Katsiaryna and Darya to two years of imprisonment. In 2021, Darya received Ales Lipay’s award (Belarus) and an award of Belarusian Human Rights Defenders Community, nomination – The Journalist of the Year. The prison did not make Darya Chultsova doubt her occupation choice. In her letters, she states that she would still have picked up this path if she had known where her journalistic work would lead. Darya is optimistic about the future. “2021 is my year. After all, I was born in the year of the bull. And I am very persistent, just like him,” she wrote in a letter to a colleague. The girl said she felt fine and was longing for work.
Khabar Lahariya
Founded in 2002, Khabar Lahariya is an Indian newspaper led by a team of all-women Dalit reporters and editors, producing independent news in Uttar Predesh and Madhya Pradesh. With a hyper-local focus, Khabar Lahariya operates under the premise that “news in a last-mile village is news, deserving of the same attention as what happens in a city or town.” The newspaper seeks to brings a feminist voice to local media, interrogating and disrupting the status quo to uplift those traditionally marginalized in the media landscape. It has broken barriers to establish women as journalists in small towns and villages where newsmakers have long been men, upper caste, and well-connected to the political system. After almost 20 years of this work, Khabar Lahariya’s reporters are still the outliers, even as more and more young women step into the field. As rural Dalit women, the paper’s staff are pathbreakers across gender and caste, navigating myriad challenges and prejudices that have intensified through the years.
Paola Ugaz
Paola Ugaz is a Peruvian journalist who has spent her career investigating injustice and human rights abuses globally. Currently a correspondent for Spanish newspaper ABC and a host of Lamula.pe’s “Diarios de Pandemia,” Ugaz has covered stories including scandals and abuse in the Catholic church, human and drug trafficking, corruption, human rights, racism, child poverty, education and culture. Ugaz began her career in 1999 as an investigative journalist for Caretas magazine, exposing election fraud and covering protests during former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori’s second re-election campaign. In 2001, Ugaz became a correspondent for Europa Press, where she learned to tell the world what was happening in her country. Ugaz later worked for Spanish news agency EFE, and was a founding member of IDL Reporteros, an investigative journalism website. She spent seven years as a correspondent in Peru for Brazilian outlet Terra Magazine. During her time as General Editor of Lamula.pe, Ugaz led a team of journalists to win the Peruvian Human Rights Coordinator’s National Journalism Award. Ugaz has published multiple books, including Punche Perú with photographer Marina García Burgos, and Half Monks, Half Soldiers with journalist Pedro Salinas. The latter exposed physical, psychological and sexual abuse of former members of Sodalitium, a far-right Catholic organization founded in Peru, earning Ugaz and Salinas the 2016 National Journalism Award and the 2016 Human Rights Award from Peru’s National Human Rights Coordinator. When Ugaz began working on a book investigating Sodalitium’s finances, she began receiving escalating lawsuits, media harassment and death threats on social media. In October 2018, Ugaz was sued for defamation by José Antonio Eguren, the Archbishop of Piura and a member of Sodalitium. While the claim was dropped, the attacks have continued – in 2019, Ugaz was named the journalist with the most lawsuits against them in Peru. With additional lawsuits filed in 2020, Ugaz receives near-constant harassment and abuse online. Inspired by her mentor Gustavo Gorriti’s mantra that “fear should never be your editor,” Ugaz persists to keep publishing in the pursuit of more, and better, journalism.
Sisi Wei
Sisi Wei is the Co-Executive Director at OpenNews, where she envisions and executes transformative initiatives for journalism, especially for journalists of color and local journalists. As part of her work, Sisi founded the DEI Coalition For Anti-Racist, Equitable, And Just Newsrooms in 2020, and led more than 100 members of the journalism community in co-creating and launching the DEI Coalition Slack space in March 2021. The Slack is dedicated to sharing knowledge and taking concrete action in service of a more anti-racist, equitable, and just journalism industry. Previously, she was the Assistant Managing Editor at ProPublica, during which she edited and managed news apps, graphics, visual investigations, and large, interdisciplinary projects — including co-editing a project that went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2020. In 2019, Sisi and her fellow Journalists of Color Slack administrators won the ONA Community Award, which recognizes a person or small teams in online journalism that has made outsize contributions to creating tools or work environments that allow digital journalists to do their best work. She serves on the board of News Revenue Hub, and is the co-founder of Code with me, a nonprofit that teaches journalists how to code. In her role as a journalist/developer/designer, Sisi has also won numerous Malofiej, SND Digital, and ONA awards, the Gannett Award for Innovation in Watchdog Journalism, and the 2016 Data Journalism Award for Best Individual Portfolio. She has previously worked at the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press.
