The Kurt Schork Memorial Fund was created in honor of Kurt Schork, an American journalist who was killed in a military ambush while on assignment for Reuters on May 24, 2000 in Sierra Leone. The Schork family and friends of Kurt Schork, with start-up support from Reuters, established the Fund as a 501(c)(3) organization in March 2001.

It was the work of freelancers and local journalists that Schork valued above all. As a result, Kurt Schork’s friends, colleagues from Reuters and family decided the best way to honor his legacy was to acknowledge those journalists with whom he had a particular bond. The Kurt Schork Awards in International Journalism were created to honor fearless freelance news reporting, and those journalists who cannot leave their country when the story becomes secondary to survival. . . . .

Kurt Schork was lured to journalism late in his life, and at the age of 43 he realized his dream of becoming a foreign correspondent. For much of his career he chose to be a freelance journalist. . . . The Kurt Schork Memorial Awards are the only ones that specifically honor the contributions of freelance journalists covering foreign news and reporters from the developing world and countries in transition.

It is ironic that this award is associated with icons of journalism whose reputations have been tarnished by bias and falsification: Reuters (as Schork's former employer) and CNN (as the former employer of administrator Christiane Amanpour). But according to his friends and colleagues, Schork - like Vincent - played it straight:

Major Robert Bateman, an articulate and widely published author in the US Army, has commented widely on his disdain for political allegiance while in uniform. He feels that the military serves all of society, and thus by choice and avocation the officers corps should foreswear loyalty to any one political party. I believe that the same should hold true for journalists. We serve all of society, not just our respective political clans, circles of friends or corporate advertisers.

Someone who closely paralleled that viewpoint was an early mentor of mine, Reuters journalist Kurt Schork. His writings from Bosnia still stand as some of the greatest wartime journalism in the history of the craft. Kurt didn’t have to flog an agenda; the facts of Sarajevo spoke for themselves. The creed he imparted was that we were there to “Bear witness.” That was our job, no more, no less. Kurt instinctively knew that it was society’s job to shape events, not the Media's.

When he was killed in the line of duty in Sierra Leone, five years ago this month (ksmemorial.com), heads of state attended his funeral. One policy maker after another stated that Kurt had been a real thorn in their side, but he had always told it straight. When you hold Butros Gali’s feet to the fire for five years and the man still comes to your funeral, you were doing something right. It’s a distinction not many journalists get to have in their obit.

I can’t read a paper, watch TV or walk into a journalist hotel anywhere in the world without feeling the stab of his loss. With him gone, it seems that agendalism has grown. Kurt died and what did we get in his place? World events as a football to be kicked around by “party loyalists.” Mainstream tags such as “Liberal columnist” or “Conservative talk radio host.” Whatever happened to just “Reporters?”"

Both Schork and Vincent gained their reputations reporting from countries relieved of oppressive dictators but in transition to destinies still unknown. Like Schork, Vincent only found his true calling as a foreign correspondent in his 40s, and like Schork, he was killed in action. Like Schork, Vincent refused to strain his reporting through the sieve of ideology; he went where the action was and reported what he saw.

Vincent has been nominated posthumously for many awards, and it upset Lisa that he was never awarded any of them. But being honored in the name of a journalist whom he so much resembled is the best recognition of all.