The Serena Shim Award For Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism
Journalism is a dangerous business. Whether in Colombia or Brazil, Myanmar or Thailand or Lithuania, or as Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange are proving, even the US and the UK, journalists who report inconvenient truths have a way of disappearing, and being disappeared.
Serena Shim was born in Detroit. She attended high school in nearby Livonia MI, and graduated from the American University of Science and Technology in Beirut. She was married with two children, and at the time of her death worked for the Iranian news outlet Press TV.
Shim covered events in Ukraine, Lebanon, Iraq and Turkey, none of them happy or peaceful places, but all of them locations with stories that had to be told. One of her last stories was a report that Turkey was smuggling pro-US ISIS-ISIL fighters into contested areas of Syria in vehicles marked with insignia of the World Food Organization and other NGOs. After capturing the footage, Shim told her employers that agencies of the Turkish government had accused her of esoionage, and might choose to come after her,. Two days later, a cement truck intercepted their car on the way back to the hotel on October 19, 2014, killing Serena Shim and severely injuring her camera person, who was driving. The cement truck and its driver disappeared. There were services held for Serena Shim in Detroit and in Lebanon, where she was laid to rest near Beirut.
A fund and an award has been established in her honor, the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism. Black Agenda Report is a proud and grateful recipient of that award this year. Each and every week since October 2006 we and our contributors have tried to deliver news, information and analysis from the black left, and we hope to continue to honor the brave tradition of Serena Shim for a long time to come.
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega stated that when the country's next elections take place, none who promoted a violent anti-government insurrection in 2018 will be allowed to stand for office.…
"Israel and Washington use Ceuta and Melilla to attack Spain for naming the genocide in Gaza. The enclaves are colonial relics. But the powers now raising the issue have no concern for African or…
Against the backdrop of Israel’s renewed attacks on Palestine, the World Court is set to hold public hearings in September on Nicaragua’s legal proceedings against Germany for aiding and abetting…
In this week’s segment, we talk to Kshama Sawant, a socialist congressional candidate in Washington state, but we begin with a discussion of the Trump administration’s red scare and state repressio
The U.S. Department of State released "Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism," which justifies the genocidal siege against that country while also attempting to criminalize leftist organizing.…
