The mother of Al Jazeera’s award-winning Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh has died at a hospital in Gaza due to illness, reports Al Jazeera.

Dahdouh, who has become a symbol for the perseverance of Palestinian journalists in Gaza, had lost his wife Amna, son Mahmoud, daughter Sham and grandson Adam to an Israeli air raid in October.

Dahdouh was later wounded in an Israeli drone attack that killed his colleague, Al Jazeera cameraman Samer Abudaqa. He is currently being treated for his injuries in a hospital Doha, Qatar.

• READ MORE: Israel’s war on Gaza updates: Officials report ‘massacre’ in Deir el-Balah
• 31 Palestinian journalists currently held in Israeli prisons in record wave of detentions
• The suffering of Wael al-Dahdouh in ‘deadliest conflict for journalists’
• Israel kills journalists, while the West merely censors them

Last month, his eldest son, Hamza — a journalist who worked with Al Jazeera — was also killed in an Israeli attack alongside fellow journalist Mustafa Thuraya, a freelancer.

Last Friday, India’s Kerala Media Academy announced that its Media Person of the Year award has been given to Wael Al-Dahdouh in recognition of his exceptional journalistic courage.

‘Global face of courage’
The academy said in a statement that Al-Dahdouh was “a global face of journalistic courage, who continues to work despite the heavy losses borne by his family”.

Anil Bhaskar, secretary of the academy, told Arab News that Al-Dahdouh was recognised for his fearless reporting that allowed the world see the “true picture of the catastrophe” in Gaza.

“His commitment and bravery are exemplary and set an example for other journalists not only in India but all over the world,” Bhaskar said.

According to UN reports, more than 122 journalists and media workers have been among more than 27,000 people killed in Israel’s nearly four-month offensive in Gaza.

Press freedom watchdog the Committee to Protect Journalists said last month that journalists were being killed in Gaza at a rate with no parallel in modern history and that there was “an apparent pattern of targeting of journalists and their families by the Israeli military.”

Why is there no organized campaign of Western press demanding Israel’s Government Press Office end its media siege and allow them into Gaza to report on the genocide? Why aren’t they making this demand to Israeli officials when they appear as guests on their networks? We know. https://t.co/aRlKo4ulzX

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) February 4, 2024

‘Struggling to keep alive’
Meanwhile, Ayman Nobani, reporting from Nablus in the occupied West Bank, says Palestinian journalists are “struggling to keep alive”.

He reported that Shorouk al-Assad, a member of the general secretariat of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, as saying that journalists in the besieged coastal enclave were living through unprecedented times as they were being targeted by Israeli forces.

“The most important challenge today is the survival of journalists in light of their targeting and bombardment by Israel, in addition to the killing of their families, the destruction of their neighbourhoods, and the death of their colleagues,” she told Al Jazeera.

She also said:

• At least 73 media offices have been bombed since October 7;
• All of Gaza’s radio stations are no longer operating due to bombardment, power outages, or the killing or displacement of staff;
• Only 40 journalists remain in northern Gaza and they are besieged and isolated, with no means to send food or relief items to them; and
• Some 70 journalists have lost close family members

Earlier reports have indicated 78 Palestinian journalists have been killed in the Israeli war on Gaza, many of them targeted.

The Philippine Court of Appeals (CA) has finally granted overseas travel to Rappler CEO and Nobel Laureate Maria Ressa, who will be in the United States for the entire month of November to deliver a series of lectures at the Harvard Kennedy School in Boston.

Ressa filed the request on October 5, three days before the Nobel announcement was made.

The CA promulgated its decision in favour of Ressa on October 18, 10 days after the journalist was named one of the two joint winners of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize.

• READ MORE: Other Maria Ressa and Rappler reports
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Unlike past travel requests, the CA Eighth Division said the Harvard lectures were proven to be urgent and necessary.

In August 2020, the CA denied Ressa’s travel request saying that to accept the 2020 International Press Freedom Award from the National Press Club was not necessary and urgent.

In December 2020, the CA also denied a travel request from Ressa to visit her 76-year-old mother in Florida who had just been diagnosed with breast cancer two months prior to the request. The CA said then that it was also not considered a necessary and urgent travel.

For this request, the CA said Harvard’s “invitation letter shows that Ressa’s participation in the programme requires her physical presence” and that “in fact, the Harvard Kennedy School explained that the programme involves an in-person 30-day residency.”

Wish to visit her parents
Ressa also indicated in her request her wish to visit her parents in Florida within November which will coincide with the American Thanksgiving holiday, saying she had not seen them in two years.

The CA said “humanitarian reasons support Ressa’s intended travel,” adding that “certainly, one’s legitimate intention to be reunited with her/his parents cannot be doubted”.

Generally, a person under trial for bailable offences in the Philippines are easily granted their travel requests. The other courts handling Ressa’s tax and securities charges have granted her requests.

It’s the CA, which is handling her appeal for her cyber libel conviction, that’s the hardest to hurdle as conviction further restricts one’s right to travel.

“While Ressa’s conviction changes her situation and warrants the exercise of greater caution in allowing her to leave the Philippines, her undisputed compliance with the conditions imposed by the court a quo on her previous travels shows that she is not a flight risk,” said the CA, the decision penned by Associate Justice Geraldine Fiel-Macaraig, with concurrences from Associate Justices Elihu Ybañez and Angelene Mary Quimpo-Sale.

Ressa is scheduled to fly home to the Philippines in early December. To attend the Nobel awarding in Oslo on December 10, she would have to file another batch of travel requests before all the courts handling the seven cases.

The Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) tried to contest this travel grant, citing among others Ressa’s alleged flight risk, but the CA did not agree.

“We cannot sustain the OSG’s opposition grounded on Ressa’s dual citizenship and alleged lack of respect for the Philippine judicial system because the same is speculative as of now,” the CA said in its October 29 denial of OSG’s motion for reconsideration.

Ressa has strong economic ties in the Philippines as she is the CEO of Rappler, an online media platform based in the country.”

Lian Buan covers justice and corruption for Rappler. This article is republished with permission.

The Jornal Independente newspaper has been awarded Timor-Leste’s mediaoutlet of the year prize in the National Press Council’s 2019 awards.

Rigoberto Monteiro, executive director of Timor-Leste’s Press Council, said the Independente took out the award because of the quality of its stories and “strict adherence to the journalism code of ethics compared to other major media”.

Virgilio Da Silva Guterres, president of the Press Council, said although the Independente was one of the smaller media outlets in the country, its commitment to “writing balanced news and obeying the journalism code of ethics” gave it an edge over other media outlets.

• READ MORE: Timor-Leste’s Independente champions ‘free press’
• AJF condemns impunity over Balibo Five murders in Timor, other killings

Accepting the award, Jose Sarito Amaral, director of the Independente, said he was “very grateful that the Press Council and jury team [had] recognised Jornal Independente as the best media in Timor-Leste.”

Amaral said he promised to continue motivating his journalists to improve the quality of their work.

Introduced in 2017, the Press Council Awards recognise the critical role media plays in access to information and freedom of speech.

The award comes with prize money of US$1500 and a trophy.

• The award also marked the assassination of five Australian-based journalists at Balibo, Timor-Leste, on 16 October 1975, shortly before the invasion of the country by neighbouring Indonesia and the later killing of Roger East, who set up an East-Timor news agency.
• Jornal Independente

Television New Zealand’s journalists have come out on top at the annual Voyager Media Awards last night, scooping a number of awards in key categories, reports TVNZ 1 News.

1 News Pacific correspondent Barbara Dreaver was recognised for both the Best TV/Video News Item and Best Coverage of a Major News Event for her leading coverage of the Samoan measles crisis last year.

Sunday’s Jehan Casinader was awarded Broadcast Reporter of the Year and Best TV/Video Current Affairs, Short, for his feature Black Friday.

READ MORE: Voyager Media Awards 2020

Grief in Samoa ‘next level’ as measles epidemic claims at least 68 lives – TVNZ 1 News

TVNZ’s online news and current affairs platform Re: rounded out the Best TV/Video Current Affairs Category, winning the Long section for the feature Rediscovering Aotearoa: aroha/love.

The runner-ups for those categories were TVNZ’s Seven Sharp for Harri Brown’s story and Sunday’s feature on The Numbers Game.

In other categories, Re: reporter Cass Marrett won Best Video Journalist – Junior, while Mava Enoka received the Peter M Acland Fellowship, which will see her undertake a placement at Al Jazeera international television network Southeast Asia headquarters in Kuala Lumpur.

The 1 News design team won Best Artwork/Graphics, with their high-end augmented reality work featuring highly on 1 News’ news bulletins.

The major media awards were conducted remotely this year due to the covid-19 corovavirus pandemic gathering restrictions.

Other major categories include Newspaper of the Year and Website of the Year, both of which went to The New Zealand Herald.

All winners at the Voyager Media Awards 2020

Best headline, caption or hook  – Barnaby Sharp, Nelson Mail/Stuff

Best artwork / graphics – 1 NEWS Design Team, TVNZ

Best interview or profile – Michelle Langstone, NZ Herald/NZME

Cartoonist of the Year – Toby Morris, The Spinoff

Opinion Writer of the Year – Emma Espiner, Newsroom

Reviewer of the Year – Paul Little, North & South/Bauer Media

Travel Journalist of the Year – Mike White, North & South/Bauer Media

Editorial Executive of the Year – Annabelle Lee-Mather, The Hui GSTV for MediaWorks

Best feature or current affairs video – single video journalist – Luke McPake with “Death Bed: The Story of Kelly Savage”, RNZ

Best video journalist – junior – Cass Marrett, Re: / TVNZ

Video Journalist of the Year – Lawrence Smith, Stuff

Best TV/video documentary – Stuff Circuit/Stuff and Māori Television, “Infinite Evil”

Best TV/video news item – 1 NEWS/TVNZ with Barbara Dreaver, “Measles lockdown”

Best TV/video current affairs, short (up to 10 mins) – Sunday/TVNZ with Jehan Casinader, “Black Friday”

Best TV/video current affairs, long (between 10 mins and 20 mins) – Re:/TVNZ, “Rediscovering Aotearoa: aroha/love”

Reporting – crime and justice – Blair Ensor, The Press/Stuff

Reporting – social issues, including health and education – Emma Russell, NZ Herald/NZME

Reporting – general – Patrick Gower, Newshub/MediaWorks

Best reporting – Māori Affairs – Te Aniwa Hurihanganui, RNZ

Environmental/Sustainability Award – Kate Evans, New Zealand Geographic/Kōwhai Media

Science Journalism Award – Eloise Gibson, newsroom.co.nz

Best individual investigation – Patrick Gower for “Exposing white supremacy in New Zealand”, Newshub/MediaWorks

Best team investigation – Stuff, “Product of Australia”

Best (single) news story / scoop – Melanie Reid, newsroom.co.nz

Best coverage of a major news event – 1 News/TVNZ with Barbara Dreaver, “Samoan measles crisis”

Best editorial campaign or project – newsroom.co.nz, “Oranga Tamariki uplifts”

Best Reporter – junior – Logan Church, RNZ

Student Journalist of the Year – Ashley Stanley, newsroom.co.nz

Community Journalist of the Year – Virginia Fallon, Kāpiti Observer/Stuff

Regional Journalist of the Year – Hamish McNeilly, The Press/Stuff

Sports Journalist of the Year – Dana Johannsen, Stuff

Business Journalist of the Year – Tim Hunter, NBR

Political Journalist of the Year – Audrey Young, NZ Herald/NZME

Broadcast Reporter of the Year – Jehan Casinader, Sunday/TVNZ

Reporter of the Year – Guyon Espiner, RNZ

nib Health Journalism Scholarship – junior – Emma Russell, NZ Herald/NZME

nib Health Journalism Scholarship – senior – Nicholas Jones, NZ Herald/NZME

Regional Journalism Scholarship – Natalie Akoorie, NZ Herald/NZME; Aaron Leaman, Waikato Times/Stuff

Peter M Acland Foundation Fellowship – Mava Enoka, TVNZ; Charles Anderson, Vanishing Point Studio

Feature writing – crime and justice – Mike White, North & South/Bauer Media

Feature writing – social issues, including health and education – Florence Kerr, Stuff

Feature writing – general – Steve Braunias, NZ Herald/NZME and newsroom.co.nz; Duncan Greive, The Spinoff

Best first-person essay or feature (no word limit) – Tayi Tibble, newsroom.co.nz

Best feature writer – junior (no word limit) – Joel MacManus, Stuff

Feature Writer of the Year – short form (up to 3500 words) – Nicholas Jones, NZ Herald/NZME

Feature Writer of the Year – long form (3500+ words) – Aaron Smale, RNZ

Best magazine cover – HOME New Zealand/Bauer Media

Best magazine design – HOME New Zealand/Bauer Media

Best newspaper-inserted magazine – Sunday Magazine, Sunday Star-Times/Stuff

Best trade/specialist publication, free magazine and/or website – Air Force News/Defence Public Affairs

Magazine of the Year – Metro magazine/Bauer Media; New Zealand Geographic/Kōwhai Media

Best photography – features (including portraits, fashion, food and architecture) – Braden Fastier, Nelson Mail/Stuff

Best photography – news – George Heard, The Press/Stuff

Judges’ prize for the single best news photo – Stacy Squires, The Press, Dominion Post, Sunday Star-Times/Stuff

Best photography – sport – Mark Baker, Associated Press

Best photo-story/essay – Cameron McLaren, New Zealand Geographic/Kōwhai Publishing

Photographer of the Year – Alan Gibson, NZ Herald/NZME

Best newspaper front page – The Press/Stuff

Community Newspaper of the Year – The Beacon/Beacon Media Group

Newspaper of the Year (up to 30,000 circulation) – Waikato Times/Stuff

Newspaper of the Year (more than 30,000 circulation) – NZ Herald/NZME

Weekly Newspaper of the Year – Sunday Star-Times/Stuff

Voyager Newspaper of the Year – NZ Herald/NZME

Podcast – Best narrative/serial – “White Silence”, RNZ and Stuff

Podcast – Best episodic/recurrent – “He Kakano Ahau”, RNZ and Ursula Grace Films; “Out of My Mind”, Stuff

Best innovation in digital storytelling – “Fighting the Demon”, NZ Herald/NZME and Greenstone

Best news website or app – nzherald.co.nz/NZME

Website of the Year – nzherald.co.nz/NZME

Student journalists have celebrated the end of the academic year with their 18th annual awards at the University if the South Pacific.

They were in jovial spirits as 14 awards and cash prizes to the tune of $6000 were awarded to many of the students in a ceremony on Friday evening.

Solomon Islands students did especially well, taking away many of the prizes.

Keynote speaker was a former coordinator of the USP journalism programme, Professor David Robie, director of the Pacific Media Centre.

Media Association of the Solomon Islands (MASI) president Charles Kadamana, a senior Solomon Star journalist who graduated from the USP programme last year, also spoke.

Full awards list | Professor David Robie’s speech

• Photographers: Harrison Selmen, Jovesa Naisua and David Robie

USP journalism awards night

1 of 12

Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk

Rappler executive editor and CEO Maria Ressa has won a coveted press freedom award from a 70-year-old global network of news publishers seeking to uphold the rights of journalists worldwide.

Ressa received the Golden Pen of Freedom Award from the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) in Portugal last week.

In her acceptance speech, Ressa said: “My heart breaks when I look at what our young reporters and staff have to live with – and the courage they show in the face of brute force and impunity… the respect they continue to show authorities, the nightmares they fight at night, the mission that lives inside them.

READ MORE: The full text of Maria Ressa’s acceptance speech

“But this award goes beyond Rappler,” she continued.

“For the Filipino journalists in the audience, please stand up. This is for all Filipino journalists just trying to do our jobs.”

The Rappler CEO also said that “the Golden Pen of Freedom also goes beyond journalists in the age of social media. So this award is also for Filipinos who are holding the line … And I want to do a special shout-out to the men and women inside the Philippine government – because your choices, every compromise you make, will determine the future of our nation,” she said.

‘Fighting for our values’
“This is for all Filipinos who continue to fight for our values – to stand for the rule of law and to defend press freedom!” added Ressa as she received the WAN-IFRA award to a standing ovation.

Founded in 1948, WAN-IFRA is an organisation whose members represent 18,000 publications across 120 countries, including the Philippines and New Zealand. Its mission is “to protect the rights of journalists around the world to operate free media.”

The Golden Pen of Freedom is WAN-IFRA’s annual award that aims “to turn the spotlight of public attention on repressive governments and journalists who fight them”.

WAN-IFRA said that “often, the laureate is still engaged in the struggle for freedom of expression and the Pen has, on several occasions, secured the release of a publisher or journalist from jail or afforded him or her a degree of protection against further persecution”.

The award comes as Rappler faces attacks from the Duterte administration due to its fearless reportage of the government’s war on drugs, human rights abuses, and other controversies, prompting President Rodrigo Duterte to condemn it as “fake news”.

This is the latest in a series of international awards won by Rappler and Ressa over the past year, including the following:

• The 2018 Knight International Journalism Award from the International Center for Journalists
• The award for Data Journalism Website of the Year from the Global Editors Network
• The Free Media Pioneer Award from the International Press Institute
• The W. Averell Harriman Democracy Award from former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright’s National Democratic Institute

In solidarity with Rappler
David Callaway, president of the World Editors Forum, described Ressa as “a genuinely courageous journalist, a dedicated media pioneer, and a true believer in the power that the craft of journalism can have.”

Callaway is former editor in chief of USA Today, one of the largest newspapers in the United States. He is now CEO and editor emeritus of TheStreet, a 22-year-old American source of financial news.

Callaway said in his speech introducing Ressa: “We’re here to stand in solidarity with her and her news organization as together they face immense pressures, deeply personal attacks, and orchestrated attempts to undermine the professionalism and credibility of a news brand that has captured the public imagination and truly embraced what it means to be ‘social’ in this digital media age.

“We’re here to denounce the incessant online attacks against a woman who has navigated war zones and reported from conflict areas, and yet who concedes that never before has she faced a challenge so large, so all encompassing, in terms of what she has been subjected to over recent years from the anonymous online troll armies of her opponents and critics,” he added.

Callaway cited how “officials in at least 8 government agencies have attacked Rappler,” while “a number of open investigations and court decisions” remain pending.

Callaway said: “We hope that by awarding the Golden Pen of Freedom to Maria Ressa, the Philippine government will pause before it considers its next move, that it takes stock of what its actions mean for the democratic future of the country and its millions of people.

“A free media is the sign of a strong, confident political system, one that trusts its people and has understood the electoral bargain. Encouraging criticism and participation ensures accountability, something President Duterte should understand.

“We hope the Golden Pen also deters those who seek to undermine media independence and the profession of journalism by showing the solidarity that the award represents. When all else fails, we should know that we have each other to rely upon if we are to continue making the kind of impact, breaking the sort of stories, and shining our light into those dark corners in a way our communities have come to expect. The way Rappler has been doing, and will keep on doing,” he added.

‘Existential moment for Rappler’
As she received the award, Ressa said Rappler had been “fighting impunity on two fronts” for the past two years.

She mentioned impunity in government, “which is fundamentally changing our Constitution and our way of life starting with a brutal drug war.”

She also cited impunity on Facebook.

“We know its best and worst: it enabled Rappler’s fast growth and also later became the battleground for online state-sponsored hate to silence critical voices and – in David’s words – to ‘occupy’ the public space.”

The Rappler CEO cited how the Philippine government changed the drug war figures in the first 3 months of Duterte’s anti-drug campaign – “slicing and dicing people and numbers, demanding we report only what they say.”

She said that simultaneously, “journalists were battered into submission by unrelenting, orchestrated attacks on Facebook.”

Death toll ‘first casualty’
“That death toll was the first casualty in our war for truth,” Ressa said.

She also pointed out the “rapid re-engineering of reality” on Facebook, “where the tools of our profession were turned against us to incite hate, create straw enemies, build alternative realities.”

“The propaganda on social media was meant not just to mislead our people. They meant to overwhelm and attack journalists at a deeper, more damaging, psychological level. This is a new threat,” Ressa said.

“Where in the past, you were thrown in jail, now, the prison is inside the walls of Facebook… and in our heads. Conquering that means confronting our individual fears – and regardless of what we perceive to be the consequences to our reputations, to our communities, we have to find the courage to report what we see,” she added.

Ressa then discussed the search for solutions to survive in this landscape.

“We look for solutions. In the long term, it’s education. Medium-term, media literacy. In the short term, investigative journalism, and right now, since the new gatekeepers are American tech companies, they hold the power to turn our world right-side up,” she said.

She pointed out that Rappler was now actively working with Facebook.

‘Act – or people die’
“To my friends there and on other social media platforms, please move away from technological colonialism. Remember that every day you do not act in the Global South means people die.”

Ressa also said she knows firsthand “that good journalism is bad business.” She said that after Rappler hit positive EBITDA – or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation – two years ago, “the government attacks brought Rappler to an existential moment.”

But Rappler is determined to survive.

Ressa said: “You don’t really know who you are until you’re forced to fight to defend it. Then every battle you win – or lose… every compromise you choose to make… or to walk away from… all these struggles define the values you live by and, ultimately, who you are.”

“We at Rappler decided that when we look back at this moment a decade from now, we will have done everything we could: we did not duck, we did not hide.”

Ending her speech, she said: “My name is Maria Ressa. We are Rappler, and we will hold the line.”

Republished from Rappler.com.

• RSF calls on Philippines to stop ‘hounding’ Rappler