2022 Hinzpeter Awards

Announcement of Winners of the Hinzpeter Awards in 2022

The 2022 Hinzpeter Awards Jury Committee (hereafter referred to as the jury) announced the winners of the 2022 Hinzpeter Awards at 14:00 on Tuesday, September 13, at the May Memory Repository of the May 18 Memorial Foundation.

Award for Features

• Winner:
  Chae Wan Yun, Korea, Freelance Videojournalist
  Intae Jun, Korea, Producer at the KBS Producer of Current Affairs and Cultural Programs Department
  Dong Yeol Kim, Korea, Producer at the KBS Current Affairs and Cultural Programs Department
  
  
  
• Prizewinning Work: 68 Days on the Frontline
• Broadcast by KBS 1TV, June 2, 2022
  https://youtu.be/oynQ1km1SFA

May Gwangju Award

• Winner:
  The late Shireen Abu Akleh, Palestine/USA, Reporter for Al Jazeera
  Majdi Bannoura, Palestine, Videojournalist for Al Jazeera
  

In the 2nd Hinzpeter Awards in 2022, three winners were selected in the competition category and one in the non-competition category. “The Spider-Man of Sudan” (Philip Cox, UK) won the World at a Crossroads Award. “Afghanistan, Now” (Takuya Watanabe, Japan) won the Award for News. “68 Days on the Frontline” (Chaewan Yun, Intae Jun, and Dongyeol Kim, Korea) was selected for the Award for Features, and the late reporter Shireen Abu Akleh and Majdi Bannoura were selected for the May Gwangju Award, a non-competition category.

The 2022 Second Hinzpeter Awards Organizing Committee was held at the May 18 Memorial Foundation on September 13, at 2pm. The organizing committee is co-chaired by Soonseok Won, the chairperson of the May 18 Memorial Foundation, and Junyoung Rha, the president of the Korean Film Reporters Association.

The jury selected Philip Cox, who covered a demonstrator wearing Spiderman costumes while fighting against military repression and demanding the return of democratic and civilian rule to Sudanese citizens. Videojournalist Takuya Watanabe was the first to interview Taliban spokesperson Suhail Shaheen in Japanese media before the U.S. troops withdrew from Afghanistan. The jury selected Chaewan Yun, Intae Jun, and Dongyeol Kim for their coverage of the frontline citizens who lost their homes in the Ukraine war and lost their lives in fire. They also selected the late Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed by bullets from the Israeli army while working as an on-site reporter, and Majdi Bannoura, who recorded the shooting. Abu Akleh had worked as a reporter in the Arab world since 1997. The jury said that they selected these journalists because of their passion.

The jury said today that the decisions on the winners of the Hinzpeter Awards honor the spirit of the late Jurgen Hinzpeter and solidify cooperation and solidarity with journalists who capture the people’s aspirations for democracy around the world.

2022 Hinzpeter Awards Ceremony : May 18 Democracy Square(Gwangju) / 18:00 October 27, 2022

The 2nd Hinzpeter Awards Ceremony in 2022 will be held in Gwangju on October 27. Prize money of 10,000 dollars and a trophy are awarded to the winners in each category. In addition, the Hinzpeter Awards Organizing Committee will hold concurrent events with the Korea Radio Promotion Association and the Pulitzer Center in the U.S.

2022 Hinzpeter Awards - Winning Decision

The 2022 Hinzpeter Awards Jury Committee, co-hosted by the Korean Film Reporters Association and the May 18 Memorial Foundation, has invited public participation and examined the works submitted to the competition section and the May Gwangju Award candidates in the non-competition section. The Committee confirms the winners as follows:

1. The World at a Crossroads Award - Philip Cox <The Spider-Man of Sudan>

Philip Cox, winner of the grand prize, The World at a Crossroads Award, is a British freelance videojournalist who was working in Khartoum, the capital of the Republic of the Sudan, in October 2021 when a military coup took place. The citizens of Sudan ousted Omar al-Bashir, a dictator for 30 years, in a revolution in April 2019. While civilians and the military were preparing for the establishment of democratic rule by forming a joint transitional government, a military coup occurred. Sudan’s citizens protested against it and began to hold large-scale demonstrations demanding the return of democratic and civilian rule.

One day, as the military crackdown intensified to quell civil resistance across the country, an anonymous demonstrator dressed as Spiderman appeared in the center of the protests. He became famous on social media for jumping off billboards, dodging tear gas, and climbing buildings, becoming a symbol of civil resistance.

More than 100 civilians lost their lives in the violent suppression by the security forces, and at the risk of being shot in the head, Cox covered the “Sudan superhero” and the people’s aspiration for democracy to inform the world of their struggle, even risking their lives.

Funded by Cox himself and a small independent production company, Native Voice Films, and produced with support from the Pulitzer Center, “The Spider-man of Sudan” was released on May 17, 2022. It was broadcast by The Guardian.

Jury members found that Cox showed the aspiration and will of Sudanese citizens to restore democracy and create a better country through the story of the Spider-Man, who resists the military coup. In addition, the jury found that the video showing the dangers of the protests was vivid, while the visual aesthetics through various devices drew the story impressively. The creative storytelling had a significant quality, the jury stated.

Cox’s work portrays the indomitable will of citizens fighting for democracy while staying together in a dangerous situation amid bullets. His work is in line with the spirit that the late Jurgen Hinzpeter showed on May 18, 1980. Cox upholds the value of the Hinzpeter Awards, the jury said.

The jury hopes that awarding Cox will create international solidarity for the Sudanese struggle for democracy, which has not received much attention from the world.

2. Award for News - Takuya Watanabe <Afghanistan, Now>

Takuya Watanabe joined TBS Japan in 2016 as a videojournalist and has been working as a correspondent in the London office since 2021. In August 2021, he and his team interviewed Taliban spokesperson Muhammad Suhail Shaheen in person, for the first time in Japanese media, just before the U.S. troops withdrew from Afghanistan. Three months later, in November, he visited Kabul, the capital city, where the Taliban had begun to rule again, and Bamiyan, where the world’s largest stone Buddha was destroyed during the Taliban’s rule 20 years ago. He captured the condition of the Afghan people, living in poverty and amid food shortages.

The jury members found that Watanabe’s work was valuable to viewers, who could not access in-depth coverage of the changes in Afghanistan and the international community’s questions about the Taliban in a chaotic situation as U.S. troops withdrew and the Taliban regained power. In particular, the jury found that Watanabe had provided information to predict the changes in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of U.S. troops through an interview with the Taliban spokesperson. He reported on how Afghan society and people’s lives have changed since the Taliban came to power. His reporting has aroused humanitarian interest from the international community, particularly by covering the miserable livelihood of the country’s citizens, with as many as one million people expected to die from starvation due to food shortages.

The jury members mentioned that the journalist took personal risks despite the unstable political situation in Afghanistan and applauded the courage of Watanabe’s team. Their coverage of the issue of political freedom for Afghan citizens and of cultural heritage in the Bamiyan region displayed great effort to realize democracy, human rights, and peace. Thus, Takuya Watanabe was selected to receive this year’s Award for News, the jury added.

3. Award for Features - Chaewan Yun, Intae Jun, Dongyeol Kim <68 Days on the frontline>

On February 24, the Ukraine War broke out following Russia’s invasion. When the war started, South Korean independent journalist Cheawan Yun ran to the frontline at Donetsk to document the horrors of the war. The Passport Act of South Korea has been criticized by journalists around the world for violating the freedom of the press. It imposes legal punishment if one enters a travel-banned country to report without prior permission from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Expecting prosecution and punishment for violations of the Passport Act, Yun’s coverage of the war displayed his determination as a journalist to face reality and report the truth of history. He spent 68 days in the Ukraine war, and his coverage was not about a war seen “from above,” focusing on political and diplomatic rhetoric and calculation, but “from below,” with the story of ordinary people struggling at the crossroads of life and death. A journalist who remembers the horrific civil war that took place in his country 72 years ago, he conveyed the desperate plea for peace from Ukrainian citizens and the pain of losing everything in the war on streets full of fire, or in underground shelters, hiding from the shelling. The message is, “Please stop this tragedy!”

Producers Intae Jun and Dongyeol Kim from KBS, a public broadcasting outlet in Korea, paid attention to the risk to life that Yun faced and the voices of Ukrainian citizens that he covered, longing for survival and peace. After 100 days of war in Ukraine, KBS broadcast a special documentary about the war that was not captured by domestic and foreign media and was not reported in the propaganda between Russia and Ukraine.

Jury members said that “68 Days on the Frontline” tells the story of people who have lost everything during the war, but who try to overcome their great pain together, their voices of hope and for peace conveyed in their ruined reality. This documentary demonstrates the values of democracy, human rights, and peace that the Hinzpeter Awards pursues. The jury particularly praised Yun’s courage and hard work. He risked his life and faced the prospect of being punished under the Korean Passport Act, all to document the horrors of the war.

The jury members also evaluated Intae Jun and Dongyeol Kim, who tried to show another truth about the Ukraine War that was not shown in most foreign media outlets. The jury also considered the passion that KBS showed in its responsibility for international reporting. The jury hopes that such efforts will help Korean media outlets to strengthen their publicity and responsibility.

• May Gwangju Award – Achievement Award
  • The late Shireen Abu Akleh,
  • Majdi Bannoura (videojournalist)

The late Shireen Abu Akleh, since 1997 a Palestinian-American reporter for Al Jazeera, an Arab broadcasting channel, had presented in-depth coverage of issues between Palestine and Israel for the past 25 years.
The Israel Times called Akleh the “most prominent veteran among Arab journalists.” She reported on the second Intifada Resistance Movement in 2000, the attack on the Jenin Refugee Camp in 2002, and the long-term Palestinian prisoners in Shikma Prison in 2005.

Majdi Bannoura joined Al Jazeera as a videojournalist in the same year as Akleh. They worked together as field reporters for 24 years. Bannoura has been recording the Israeli military’s oppression of human rights and violence against the Palestinian people and their resistance movement. Bennoura, who was covering the Israeli invasion of Ramallah in 2018 and the Palestinian protests against it, was wounded by a tear gas canister fired by Israeli forces. At that time, Arab media organizations and international human rights groups who heard the news of the incident released a protest statement stating that “Israeli authorities must guarantee the freedom and safety of journalists.” They demanded measures to prevent a recurrence.

On May 11, the two journalists, Akleh and Bannoura, along with their fellow reporters, were covering the Israeli Defense Force raids on the Jenin Refugee Camp in the West Bank of Palestine. The Israeli army’s bullets flew at the reporters. The team wore blue “press” vests indicating that they were international journalists, but the Israeli military ignored them. In the end, the bullets killed the Arabs’ most prominent veteran journalist. When Akleh helplessly collapsed from the gunfire, videojournalist Bannoura recorded her final moments.

Bannoura documented the situation with a camera even as Israeli forces continued to fire. The video became evidence of Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians and the threat to the journalists who cover and report on it. The Israeli military authorities, who had been denying the shooting for nearly three months since Akleh’s death, were criticized by global citizens who witnessed the scene through the video from Bannoura. On September 6, they officially admitted their fault.

Meanwhile, Bannoura is still suffering from traumatic shock. Since the launch of Al Jazeera, 12 reporters and video journalists have died during coverage, and the journalists and producers of Al Jazeera also bear deep sorrow and pain.

Journalists such as the late Akleh and videojournalist Bannoura risk their lives to fulfill their mission as journalists and to tell the truth in the fields of democracy, human rights, and peace around the world. They fight the tyranny that threatens the freedom of the press. To commemorate, encourage, and support such journalists from all over the world who carry their cameras and microphones despite shock and pain, the jury selected the late Shireen Abu Akleh and Madji Bannoura as recipients of the May Gwangju Award.

Chairperson, Jury Committee

• Christophe Deloire, Secretary General, Reporters Without Borders

Jury Committee for Competition Category

• Sonho Kim – Senior Research Fellow, Korea Press Foundation
• Seungjae Kim – Senior Journalist at YTN, Writer
• Youngme Kim – Producer specializing in international conflicts, Representative of Documentary and News Korea
• Woochul Kim – Lecturer on Media and Communication Research
• Mario Schmidt – Director, Current Affairs of NDR Hamburg
• Hyng-sil Park – Director, Arirang TV Production Center
• Bruno Federico – Freelancer, 1st Hinzpeter Awards Special Feature Section Winner
• Sharon Roobol – Head of Production, Al Jazeera English
• Tae-kyoung Suh – Former Videojournalist at MBC, Current Member of Board at MBC PLAYBE
• Ahmed Assar – Chief Editor for Asia Video and Photo, Reuters
• Kwangsu Lee – Professor, Indian Studies Department at Busan University of Foreign Studies
• Sangho Lee – PhD in Philosophy, Documentary Heritage Specialist
• Seungyoung Lee – Head of Senior Journalist Division, MBC
• Jay Lee – Research Fellow, May 18 Memorial Foundation
• Younggil Chae – Professor, Divison of Media and Communication at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
• Tim Shorrock – Investigative Journalist based in Washington DC
• Moon-ki Hong – Professor, Department of Media and Visual Advertisement, Hansei University
• Hiroyuki Ota – Director of the Foreign Press Department, TBS Japan

Jury Committee for the May Gwangju Award

• Junyoung Rha – President of the Korean Film Journalist Association, Co-chair of the 2nd Hinzpeter Awards
• Sonho Kim - Senior Research Fellow, Korea Press Foundation
• Woochul Kim - Lecturer on Media and Communication Research
• Seungjai Moon – Hinzpeter Awards Organizing Committee
• Gibong Lee – Secretary General, May 18 Memorial Foundation
• Jay Lee - Research Fellow, May 18 Memorial Foundation
• Tim Shorrock - Investigative Journalist based in Washington DC
• Wonsang Han - Hinzpeter Awards Organizing Committee