April 27, 2004
Medill to Award Medal of Courage
EVANSTON, Ill.
--- A Newsday reporter and photographer team will receive the
2003 Medill Medal for Courage in Journalism and three
graduates of the Medill School of Journalism will be inducted into
the school’s Hall of Achievement at a special ceremony Monday,
April 26, at Northwestern University.
Nan Robertson, former New York Times reporter, 1983 Pulitzer
Prize winner and Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism
graduate, will present the Medal for Courage. Free and open to
the public, the event will take place at 4 p.m. in the McCormick
Tribune Center Forum, 1870 Campus Drive, Evanston campus. A reception
will follow.
Newsday reporter
Matthew McAllester and photographer Moises Saman were awarded
the first Medill Medal for Courage in Journalism for “Eight
Days in an Iraqi Prison.” In that piece, McAllester documented
their 2003 imprisonment by Iraqi officials at Abu Ghraib, a prison
known as a site of torture and death.
McAllester detailed their living conditions and state of mind
during the incarceration, as well as their interaction with their
captors and determination to accurately depict modern-day Iraq.
The Medill Medal is given to the individual or journalism team
working for a U.S.-based media outlet that best displays moral,
ethical or physical courage in the pursuit of a story.
“These correspondents made the risky decision to stay behind
in Baghdad after the war began and kept their wits about them sufficiently
to write a vivid, compelling account of their imprisonment,” one
judge wrote of McAllester and Saman.
Medill School alumni Christine Brennan, Richard Threlkeld and
John Christensen will be inducted into the Medill Hall of Achievement.
Established in 1997, it honors Medill alumni with distinctive careers
that have positive impacts on their fields. It currently has 105
members.
Brennan is
a sports writer, author and sports analyst who reports on international
sports, women’s athletics and athletic issues.
Her regular column in USA Today makes her the most widely read
female sports columnist in the nation. She broke the judging scandal
in the pairs figure skating at the 2002 Olympics. Her column on
the Augusta National Golf Club’s exclusion of women members
prompted national debate. A winner of many journalism awards, Brennan
was named by Associated Press in 2001 as one of the nation’s
top 10 sports columnists.
Threlkeld,
author of “Dispatches from the Former Evil Empire,” was
a CBS writer, reporter, anchor and bureau chief, before retiring
in 1999. He was a regular contributor to many CBS broadcasts, including
the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather and Sunday Morning. An experienced
combat reporter, he covered the Vietnam War and Persian Gulf war,
as well as the U.S. invasions of Panama and Grenada. The winner
of numerous awards for broadcasting, he covered the assassination
of Robert F. Kennedy, the Patty Hearst kidnapping case and major
political campaigns.
Christensen
founded Christensen Advertising (chrisad), a California-based
dental practice marketing agency after completing a master’s
degree in advertising and marketing from Medill. He has directed
advertising and public affairs for the National Guard in the states
of Washington and California and managed political campaigns. He
is the author of two books on dental and practice marketing.
For further information about the Medill Medal of Courage and
Hall of Achievement ceremony, call (847) 491-4278. |