ABC 20/20, Sweden's TV4 Receive International Watchdog Awards

ABC 20/20, Sweden's TV4 Receive International Watchdog Awards

The Center for Public Integrity Announces ICIJ Award Winners and Finalists

http://www.publicintegrity.org/icij/award.aspx?act=2005

WASHINGTON, Dec. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- An ABC News 20/20 report documenting systematic sexual exploitation of girls and boys by UN peacekeepers and civilians in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been awarded the Outstanding Investigative Reporting prize for 2005 by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the international arm of the Center for Public Integrity.

In addition, Sweden's TV4 won a special citation award of $2,000 for its hour-long documentary "The Broken Promise," which exposed U.S. government involvement in the "extraordinary rendition," of two Egyptian citizens from Sweden to Egypt. Fredrik Laurin, Joachim Dyfvermark, and Sven Bergman revealed how the men were interrogated and tortured for more than 60 days as part of the U.S. global war on terrorism.

The ICIJ Awards were created in 1997 to honor transnational investigative reporting. The $20,000 first-place prize and $1,000 finalist awards are made possible by a grant from The John and Florence Newman Foundation to recognize, reward and foster international investigative reporting.

Award winners and finalists include journalists from Bulgaria, Norway, Sweden, the U.K. and the United States.

In ABC 20/20's "Peace at What Price: Investigating UN Misconduct in the Congo," Brian Ross, David Wilson Scott and Rhonda Schwartz traveled to the Congo where they interviewed victims and revealed, among other things, the case of a senior UN official who ran an Internet pedophile ring.

The ICIJ Award judges said the ABC 20/20 report represented "investigative journalism at its finest" and was "a riveting expose, a story superbly told."

"For the first time, the atrocities and rights violations on the part of the UN and its representatives are exposed and documented. ABC did its homework, took its cameras to the crime scenes in the Congo, convinced victims to tell their awful stories on the record and then nailed UN officials, also on camera, for their inadequate responses to UN 'peacekeepers' having sex with young girls and boys," the judges wrote in their letter of commendation.

Four entries received the $1,000 finalist award:

-- Miroluba Emilova Benatova of Bulgaria's bTV for her television
investigation, "Kidney Traffic."
-- Alfredo Corchado, Tracey Eaton, Laurence Iliff, and David McLemore of
the Dallas Morning News, for their series documenting drug related
violence along the U.S.-Mexico border.
-- Ola Flyum, David Hebditch of NRK/SVT/and DR Television in Norway for
their documentary, "The Manuscript Collector/Stealing History."
-- Daniel Foggo and Charlotte Edwardes of The Sunday Telegraph in the U.K.
for their series of stories on illegal abortions.

For information on this year's awards, the winners and on how to apply for the 2006 awards, please see the ICIJ website at http://www.publicintegrity.org/icij/award.aspx

The Center for Public Integrity conducts investigative research and reporting on public policy issues in the United States and around the world. Through objective and thorough analyses, the Center hopes to serve as an honest broker of information and to inspire a better-informed citizenry that can demand a higher level of accountability from its government and elected leaders. Since 1990, the Center, an independent, non-profit organization, has released more than 275 investigative reports and 14 books. In just the past eight years the Center has been honored more than 30 times by, among others, PEN USA, Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE), the Society of Professional Journalists and The George Polk Award.

ICIJ was launched in 1997 as a project of the Center for Public Integrity to extend globally the Center's style of watchdog journalism in the public interest by marshaling the talents of the world's leading investigative reporters to focus on issues that do not stop at water's edge.

Contact: Katie King, +1-202-481-1234, kking@publicintegrity.org or Julia DiLaura, +1-202-481-1209, both of the Center for Public Integrity

Source: Center for Public Integrity

CONTACT: Katie King, +1-202-481-1234, kking@publicintegrity.org or Julia
DiLaura, +1-202-481-1209, both of the Center for Public Integrity

Web site: http://www.publicintegrity.org/

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