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November 23, 2006
Be thankful for courageous journalists
Last week in London, Lisa Ramaci-Vincent accepted her husband's posthumous award from the Institute for War and Peace Reporting in London. The award is in honor of and is named for Kurt Schork, who - like Steven Vincent - began his journalism career in his 40s after several previous careers, was respected for fact-based reporting free of ideology, and was killed in a war zone.
You can watch the entire ceremony here [WMV file], beginning with slides of Kurt and then an opening speech by Christiane Amanpour, who knew Kurt Schork as a journalist in Bosnia. After Lisa speaks about 34 minutes in, slides play of Steven accompanied by one of his favorite pieces of music, from Faust. (They remind me of Steven's memorial service at Cooper Union in NYC. His ceremony was very long, because Steven had so many friends from so many different worlds, who all wanted to tell long stories about him, and all the while slide after slide of Steven and Lisa and his friends and family passed behind them.)
I found Lisa's words very poignant, and the subsequent panel discussion is certainly germane to the blogosphere: The effect of low-cost technology on journalism. Moderator Amanpour is a bit nervous about all those amateurs let loose with their Canon Powershots and laptops, but the journalists on the panel are enthusiastic about how citizens in police states use technology to get their stories out. No one actually says "Army of Davids" but one does reference Howard Rheingold's "Smart Mob."
(The video doesn't show the entire discussion, but I suspect no one points out that Steven Vincent posted most of his Iraq stories to his blog, that his first audience was his fellow bloggers, and that his blogposts led to his book. I am also not surprised that Amanpour doesn't make this observation to frame her first question to the panel, although she should.)
The gentleman on the right is the other award winner, Massoud Ansari, who "exposed a chain of command linking Pakistan extremists to the 7/7 bombers in London and . . . uncovered evidence which appears to question Islamabad’s case against the man charged with Daniel Pearl’s murder." Watch the video to learn who the others are and hear their stories.
Lisa was also interviewed by Newsweek, about her foundation to support the families of slain third-world journalists and stringers, and about life after Steven:
I am a native New Yorker and I used to always stress out. I walked around angry a lot, but I'm not angry anymore—there is no point. I lost the desire to acquire things. I just redid our apartment—I had to make it mine—and got rid of three-quarters of the things I owned. My friends are what matter to me. When Steven died they showed up and made dinners. One friend called every day to ask, "How are you?" I will always love them and appreciate them. It's not the things you have, but the things you do to try to do more for people. And, in a weird way, I am a quieter, but better person.. . . . What were you feeling as you accepted the award? What would Steven have thought about all this fanfare?
I feel a jumble of emotions. If he had lived, he would have been stunned, flabbergasted, happy and honored. He died thinking he was a failure. He always had the ambition to be a writer of novels. His true strength was writing non-fiction, but he fought against it. His career as a journalist was short. He had the "Red Zone: A Journey into the Soul of Iraq" but it was not enough for him. That's why he went back to Iraq. He didn't have a second contract. He wanted to stand away from the pack and prove himself more quickly. He pushed boundaries. He didn't want money. What he cared about was self-validation. He wanted me to be proud of him. I think he wanted to make a difference.What was Steven's greatest legacy?
At the funeral, friends I had never met came out of the woodwork. A journalist who had read Steven's blog said, "I never thought I would get an answer from Baghdad," when Steven wrote him a two-page e-mail. Another student said she had changed her major to journalism after hearing Steven speak. He had this kind of impact on people. One artist told me, "Nobody ever looked at my art like Steven did." He was so psychologically aware and in tune. People loved him. He was not out for self-aggrandizement. The world is a much less interesting place without him
UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has a roundup of dangerous and oppressive nations for journalists, and those who have been imprisoned or exiled for fighting them.
UPDATE: Dry Bones illustrates the comment of the BBC journalist in the audience, who talks with pride about his local Palestinian crew in Gaza. (This follows after a Palestinian kvetches about how poor his people are and how they are at a disadvantage because they can't afford equipment to get their story out. Thus showing that he hadn't heard a word of the panel and just wanted to rehearse his victim rhetoric.)
UPDATE: Solomonia on Amanpour's opening remarks:
. . . . watching Christiane Amanpour complain that if only the media had been more activist, things might have been different in Iraq is a bit with the sick making (everyone knows where the media stood, Christiane).
Judith | 11/23/06 at 01:18 PM | Categories: - Power to the People
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» Latest from the Steven Vincent Foundation from Kesher Talk
Every once in a while the universe gives you a present, like continued interest in the life and death of someone you care about. Readers of this blog know we were big fans of Steven Vincent's reporting from Iraq, and... [Read More]
Tracked on March 6, 2007 03:10 AM
Comments
thank you for this lovely post, judith. as always, you honor steven and me by continuing to include him in your blog, and by reminding people of his life and legacy. i cannot tell you how very much i appreciate it. god bless -
lisa ramaci-vincent | November 24, 2006 12:00 AM
Lisa, no one gets much traffic on Thanksgiving but this post got a headline on Memeorandum, so maybe it'll generate some readers.
Judith | November 24, 2006 12:44 AM
