Burundian Journalist to receive Mackler Award for courage
WASHINGTON, Oct. 11, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Burundian journalist Eloge Willy Kaneza will receive the Peter Mackler Award for Courageous and Ethical Journalism Thursday (Oct. 13) at the National Press Club. The award ceremony, which is open to the public, will be followed by a panel discussion on how journalists in repressive countries can use social media to evade press restrictions.
Kaneza, 34, is the public face of SOS Media Burundi, a collective of mostly anonymous journalists that emerged after the closure of radio stations during a May 2015 coup attempt. Using smartphones and mobile applications, Kaneza and his colleagues work under difficult circumstances as the only source of news for their countrymen and those outside Burundi.
Kaneza's award was announced in August by Global Media Forum, in collaboration with Reporters Without Borders and Agence France-Presse. The Peter Mackler Award, created in memory of the late Peter Mackler, and AFP correspondent who was dedicated to mentoring young journalists, every year honors an international journalist who fights courageously and ethically to report the news in a country or region where press freedom is threatened.
The award ceremony will be followed by a lively panel discussion: "Today's Front Lines: From pen and camera to iPhone and WhatsApp," which will explore how journalists under siege in Africa and elsewhere are using technology and new media tools to combat repression and censorship.
The panel will be led by Louise Roug, of Politico Europe, a former foreign news editor at Mashable and Newsweek and a foreign correspondent in the Middle East. She will be joined by Malachy Browne, a senior New York Times video producer and an international investigative reporter who creates technology to power journalism and human rights work; and by Scott Stearns, managing editor of VOA's Africa division who has reported extensively on the region from Dakar, Nairobi, Liberia and elsewhere.
The Peter Mackler Award ceremony will begin at 6 pm Thursday, Oct. 13, at the National Press Club, 529 14th St. NW, in Washington. To register, go to http://www.pmaward.org/
SOURCE Peter Mackler Award
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