Koring, Hollett, Hayes pick up Amnesty’s 2009 Media Awards

Three Canadian journalists have been named winners of Amnesty International Canada’s fifteenth annual Media Awards.

Paul Koring, Jennifer Hollett and David Hayes were honoured for “outstanding reporting about human rights issues in the Canadian media.”

Globe and Mail reporter Paul Koring won in the national print category for a series of articles about Abousfian Abdelrazik, a Canadian who spent six years in prison and forced exile in Sudan.

Jennifer Hollett won in the video/audio category for “The Shministim,” the story of concientious objectors who refuse to serve in Israel’s compulsory military, which aired on CBC’s Dispatches.

David Hayes won in the local alternative print category for “Abandoned In Canada,” an article about children brought into the country and then left without support, which appeared in Chatelaine.

The awards are for pieces printed or broadcast in the period from Oct. 1,
2008 to Sept. 30 2009. The awards are in honour of John Humphrey, a law professor, principal author of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and founder of the Canadian section of Amnesty International, who died in Mar. 1995.