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Welcome to The Foreign Correspondents' Club, Hong Kong on . Local Time . |
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In the Kate Webb Spirit |
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The Correspondent magazine, January-February 2010, p10 |
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In the second of its unique awards honouring the memory of legendary correspondent Kate Webb, Agence France-Presse has rewarded a fearless Philippine investigative team. Jonathan Sharp reports. |
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The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, with its proud motto of “We tell it like it is. No matter who. No matter what”, began life 21 years ago with little more than a second-hand typewriter and a battered computer. Since then, the PCIJ, still with no more than ten full-time editorial staff, has firmly established itself as a sturdy and respected bulwark of independence in a free-wheeling media environment where journalists frequently face intimidation Đ or death. Along the way, the PCIJ has itself made many enemies.
The dangers of incurring the wrath of powerful interests in the Philippines were horrifically demonstrated last November when 31 reporters and media workers were among 57 people abducted and killed in Maguindanao province, a massacre allegedly orchestrated by members of the province’s ruling Ampatuan clan.
Those deaths brought the number of journalists killed in the Philippines since the fall of Ferdinand Marcos to 134, underscoring the nation’s reputation as the world’s most lethal place in which to be a reporter.
“The last stories of journalists killed in the Philippines are typically about local graft, local corruption and local criminal activities,” said PCIJ Executive Director Malou Mangahas. She wants this year’s Kate Webb Award to recognise all reporters who worked bravely in the Philippines. “It is very difficult, almost discomfiting, to say our situation as journalists from Metro Manila could even come close to the vulnerability of our colleagues in Maguindanao or in the provinces of the Philippines. So I think a fitting tribute is to accept it in their honour.”
The PCIJ plans to use the 5,000 euros (US$7,250) prize to train Filipino journalists how to report safely while investigating the nearly 200 families that dominate Philippine politics. The award will be presented by Eric Wishart, AFP’s Asia Pacific Director, at a ceremony in Manila on March 24, Kate Webb’s birthday. Kate succumbed to cancer in 2007 aged 64.
Wishart, the moving spirit behind the award established in honour of one of AFP’s most distinguished reporters, said that many people did not realise the dangers of reporting in the Philippines.
“Normally this is an individual award, but we looked at the entries this year, and we thought that what had happened in the south of the Philippines was so extreme, we felt that, exceptionally, we would award the prize to the PCIJ.”
He added: “What’s very important for AFP is that when we send journalists into danger zones, first of all they must do combat training. A lot of journalists get killed because they haven’t had previous training. PCIJ will use the money to train journalists on the basic ways of staying out of trouble.
“The 31 who were killed in the south walked straight into a trap. I’m not judging whether or not they could have avoided it, but with training they would at least have been in a better position to decide whether it was a good idea to get involved in a situation like that.”
Conventional wars may have some basic rules, Wishart said, but these rules did not apply in places like the southern Philippines. “This kind of low-grade, dirty war that goes on in the south has no rules. And that’s the most dangerous kind of conflict for a journalist to cover.”
However it was essential that such conflicts were covered, he said. “Local journalists who do cover them are very brave. Foreigners going in have a certain protection because they are foreigners. Local journalists are the most exposed.”
In 2008, a PCIJ reporter, Jaileen Jimeno, took three trips to Maguindanao to report on the province’s impoverished population despite warnings from local reporters not to file negative reports on the Ampatuans. While in Maguindanao, there were mysterious knocks on her hotel door warning here she was being watched.
As a form of protection, Jimeno made only short trips to the danger zone, her movements were carefully followed by the PCIJ and lawyers were informed of threats made against her.
Among the notable scalps of PCIJ’s investigative reporting has been ex-president Joseph Estrada, who was deposed in 2001 after it was revealed he had helped himself to the nation’s wealth. The PCIJ’s reports were used as evidence in his impeachment hearings and the later trials found him guilty. Current President Gloria Arroyo has also been in PCIJ’s sights.
The Kate Webb Award, which is administered by the non-profit AFP Foundation, is unique as a prize that is named after a war correspondent and aimed exclusively at local journalists Đ a feature that would have been applauded by Kate, who was a renowned defender of the rights of local journalists and a supporter of their well-being. Wishart said that Kate’s family members, Jeremy and Rachel, had been consulted on the appropriateness of the award being won by the PCIJ and they approved. “They thought it was really in the Kate Webb spirit.”
Sidebar:
Kate Webb
1943 – 2007
Kate Webb belonged to that most exclusive of clubs – one whose members read about their death before they have actually died. And in Kate’s case, this was no low-brow rag that published news of her supposed demise. It was reported in the mighty New York Times no less, and on its front page to boot.
The episode that led to the greatly exaggerated reports of Kate’s death took place in Cambodia in 1971 when she was taken prisoner with five others by North Vietnamese troops. They were marched through jungle for 23 days during which she was reported to have been killed. Kate and other captives were released just as her family held a memorial service for her in Sydney. “It caused a bit of a stir at home,” she said a few years before her death to cancer in May 2007.
But the Cambodia ordeal was by no means the only defining experience in a life and career, much of it spent in Asia, that made New Zealand-born Kate a media legend. As AFP, Kate’s employer from 1985 until her retirement in 2001, recorded: “Webb’s knack for being in hot spots at the right time, a fearsome wrath and her colourful bar-room antics became the stuff of legend among fellow Asia hands who made their mark in the pre-internet era.” Although she built her enviable journalistic reputation in the Indochina conflict, Kate’s byline also featured prominently in many hot spot datelines elsewhere: in India covering the assassination of Indian Premier Rajiv Gandhi, the rise of “People’s Power” in the Philippines, the first Gulf War, the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and ensuing civil war, the strife in East Timor, the death of North Korean leader Kim Il-Sung and Hong Kong’s handover to China.
Less well publicized was the enormous generosity she showed to people and causes she cared deeply about, including, not least, local journalists, the beneficiaries of AFP’s innovative Kate Webb Award.
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September 6-10, Daily Lunch Specials
September 7-10, Bert's Schedule
October 9, 9th Annual Charity Ball 2010
New Zealand Hunter’s Wine Home Delivery
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September 22, Club Lunch: Fat China: Expanding Waistlines Change a Nation
September 13-18, Lebanese Food & Wine Promotion
September 13, Club Lunch: Threat of Islamic Fundamentalism to Asia
September 9, Johnnie Walker Whisky Dinner
FCC Diary 2011
Man and Shark by Paul Hilton and Alex Hofford
FCC Special Promotion for New Correspondent and Journalist Members
Late Lunch Promotion
FCC Label Wine "Correspondents' Choice"
FCC Gratuity Fee
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From the Club President
New Cavendish, London
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