Excellence and personal sacrifice honored at annual Burke Award Ceremony

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Excellence and personal sacrifice honored at annual Burke Award Ceremony

November 13, 2019

The United States Agency for Global Media’s (USAGM) Board of Governors awarded journalists and staff from each of its five networks yesterday with the David Burke Distinguished Journalism Awards. The awards recognize courage, excellence and professionalism in journalism and are given every year to USAGM journalists who demonstrate a commitment to providing accurate news and information that goes above and beyond.

Board Chairman Kenneth Weinstein, Board member Ambassador Ryan Crocker, and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Director Grant K. Turner presented the awards at USAGM’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.

“These awards honor people who take risks; these awards require not just hard work, but real courage,” said Keynote Speaker and CBS News Correspondent Chip Reid. “These are not just journalists; these are heroes.”

The winners represented each of USAGM’s five networks— Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB), Radio Free Asia (RFA), and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN)—and contributed to work that reached audiences in Cuba, Afghanistan, western China, the Turkey-Syria border, and throughout the Middle East.

VOA recognized its Kurdish Service Qamishli-based reporter Faheem Omer, who uses the professional name Zana Omar, for his bravery and journalistic integrity in ongoing coverage of the war in Syria and other geo-political stories in the region. Faheem’s reporting in 2018 centered on the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces’ operation to oust ISIS from eastern Syria.

RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan, locally known as Radio Azadi, was honored for its comprehensive reporting and unwavering commitment to journalism despite suffering the tragic loss of three colleagues in a deadly suicide blast that targeted journalists in Kabul in April 2018.

OCB lauded award-winning documentarian and former Miami Herald columnist Joe Cardona for producing and hosting Arcoiris (Rainbow), the first and only program in Radio Martí’s history to address LGBTQ+ issues on the island. Arcoiris, which premiered in July 2018, provides the LGBTQ+ community in Cuba a platform for expression and a connection point with similar communities in the United States and around the world.

RFA’s Uyghur Service was celebrated for its dedication and commitment to reporting the truth about human rights atrocities being committed against Uyghurs and other ethnic minority Muslims in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). Many of the staff, if not all, have China-based relatives detained in internment camps and, in at least six cases, they were mistreated in retribution for their family members’ work at RFA.

MBN’s Creative Services Team, led by Fadi Izzidin, was commended for their innovative, resourceful and impactful contributions to the successful relaunch of Alhurra Television. The team transformed productions, using leading-edge technology, to present pan-Arab audiences with contemporary, visually-engaging content.

“I firmly believe the work our journalists do every day makes the world a safer place,” said Ambassador Ryan Crocker. “The sacrifices these journalists have made to report the news day in and day out increases our debt of gratitude—thank you for your service.”

“Every year, we gather to recognize these amazing men and women, and every year, I leave more and more inspired,” said Chairman Weinstein.

Event Information

November 13, 2019, 3:00 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.

USAGM Headquarters
Washington, D.C.

For more information, please contact USAGM Public Affairs at (202) 203-4400 or by e-mail at pubaff@usagm.gov.

Ceremony will include remarks

Chip Reid
National Correspondent, CBS News
Weinstein has been President and CEO of Hudson Institute since 2011. Since joining Hudson Institute in 1999, he has held several other positions, including Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Senior Fellow, and Director of the Washington Office. From 1996 to 1998, he was the Director of the Government Reform Project at the Heritage Foundation, and from 1994 to 1996, he was Director of Research at the New Citizenship Project. He served on the National Council of the Humanities from 2006 to 2012 and was appointed to the D.C. Advisory Board to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in 2010. Weinstein received a B.A. from the University of Chicago, an M.Phil. from the Institut d’ Études Politiques de Paris, and a Ph.D. from Harvard University. Weinstein serves as a member of the Advisory Committee and served on the Special Committee on the Creation of a Chief Executive Officer. He also served on the Special Committee on the Future of Shortwave Broadcasting, which on August 1, 2014, issued its report, To Be Where the Audience Is; The Future of Shortwave. He was confirmed as a member of the board on September 23, 2013 and as Chairman on January 25, 2017. He served on the board until June 8, 2020.
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Ambassador Ryan Crocker is a Diplomat in Residence at Princeton University. He is on a leave of absence from Texas A&M University as an Executive Professor. In August 2013, he was confirmed by the United States Senate to serve on the Broadcasting Board of Governors which oversees all U.S. government-supported civilian international media. He served as a board member until June 8, 2020. From 2010-2011 and 2013-2016, he served as Dean of the George Bush School of Government & Public Service at Texas A&M. He retired from the Foreign Service in April 2009 after a career of over 37 years but was recalled to active duty by President Obama to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan in 2011. He has served as U.S. Ambassador six times: Afghanistan (2011-2012), Iraq (2007-2009), Pakistan (2004-2007), Syria (1998-2001), Kuwait (1994-1997), and Lebanon (1990-1993). Born in Spokane, Washington, he grew up in an Air Force family, attending schools in Morocco, Canada, and Turkey, as well as the U.S. He received a B.A. in English in 1971 and an honorary Doctor of Laws degree in 2001 from Whitman College (Washington). He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Academy of Diplomacy, and the Association of American Ambassadors. He is also on the Board of Directors of Mercy Corps International and is a Trustee for the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Ambassador Crocker received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award, in 2009. In July 2012, he was named an Honorary Marine, the 75th civilian so honored since the founding of the Corps in 1775.
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Grant Turner served as CEO and Director on an interim basis from October 2019-June 2020. Turner joined USAGM in February 2016 after serving for five years at the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) as Budget Director, overseeing resource management for this key U.S. foreign assistance agency. Prior to working at MCC, Turner served six years at the Office of Management and Budget—three years under President Obama and three years under President Bush—where he worked in the National Security Division, as well as the Office of the Deputy Director for Management. He moved to Washington, D.C. in 2003 when he accepted a position as an auditor with the Government Accountability Office, conducting reviews of the President’s Management Agenda, procurement best practices, and financial management. Prior to joining the Federal service, Turner worked for eight years as the primary IT buyer for the State of Hawaii. Turner is a 1989 graduate of Brigham Young University–Hawaii and holds a Master’s in Business Administration from Chaminade University of Honolulu, and a Master’s in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in Boston.
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Amanda Bennett is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, investigative journalist and editor and was named Director of the Voice of America in March 2016. Through 2013, she was Executive Editor, Bloomberg News, where she created and ran a global team of investigative reporters and editors. She was also co-founder of Bloomberg News’ Women’s project. She was editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer from June 2003 to November 2006, and prior to that was editor of the Herald-Leader in Lexington, Kentucky. She also served for three years as managing editor/projects for The Oregonian in Portland. Bennett served as a Wall Street Journal reporter for more than 20 years. A graduate of Harvard College, she held numerous posts at the Journal, including auto industry reporter in Detroit in the late 70s and early 80s, Pentagon and State Department reporter, Beijing correspondent, management editor/reporter, national economics correspondent and, finally, chief of the Atlanta bureau until 1998, when she moved to The Oregonian. Bennett shared the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting with her Journal colleagues, and in 2001 led a team from The Oregonian to a Pulitzer for public service. Projects by the Bloomberg Projects and Investigations team won numerous awards, including Loeb, Polk, Barlett & Steele, Headliners, Society of American Business Editors and Writers and Overseas Press Club Awards. She was a member of the board of the Pulitzer Prizes from 2003 to 2011 and served as co-Chair of the Pulitzer Board in 2010. She also served on the boards of the Loeb Awards, the American Society of News Editors; and of the Fund for Investigative Journalism as well as the board of advisers of the Temple University Press; the board of directors of Axis Philly, a nonprofit local news site; and of the Rosenbach Museum, a Philadelphia museum of rare books. She is the author of six books including “In Memoriam” (1998), co-authored with Terence B. Foley; “The Man Who Stayed Behind” (1993), co-authored with Sidney Rittenberg; “Death of the Organization Man” (1991) and “The Quiet Room” (1996), co-authored with Lori Schiller. “The Cost of Hope,” her memoir of the battle she and Foley, her late husband, fought against his kidney cancer, was published in June 2012 by Random House. Together with her husband, Donald Graham, she is a co-founder of TheDream.US, which provides college scholarships to the children of undocumented immigrants.
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Emilio J. Vazquez was named Interim Director of the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB) in May 2020. He previously served as Acting Director from September 2019 to May 2020 and before that as Deputy Director of the network. Mr. Vazquez joined OCB in March 2010. Prior to that, he founded the Capitolium Group, a government relations and public affairs firm based in Coral Gables, FL. He also served as the Director of Corporate Affairs at Terra Group, a luxury real estate development company, where he oversaw the iconic Freedom Tower project in Miami until it was donated to Miami Dade College. Mr. Vazquez was the South Florida Regional Director for U.S. Senator Bill Nelson, overseeing day-to-day operations and advising the Senator on Latin American policy issues. He also served as the Director of Legislative Affairs and Deputy Director of the Cuban American National Foundation in Washington, D.C., working to further the organization’s mission to advocate for a non-violent transition to a free and democratic Cuba. His expertise in the region has allowed for regular appearances on national and international media outlets to discuss U.S-Cuba relations. Mr. Vazquez has served on numerous community and civic boards including the Board of Directors of the Miami-Dade Sports Commission, the City of Coral Gables Transportation Advisory Board, and the Kiwanis Club of Little Havana. He holds a bachelor’s degree in International Studies from the University of South Florida (USF) and a master’s degree in Public Administration from Florida International University (FIU).
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Jamie Fly resumed his leadership of RFE/RL as President and Chief Executive Officer on February 16, 2021, following his reappointment by the RFE/RL Board of Directors. Fly was first named RFE/RL President and Chief Executive Officer on July 10, 2019, effective August 1, 2019. Prior to his appointment, Fly served as a senior fellow, co-director of the Alliance for Security Democracy, and director of the Future of Geopolitics and Asia programs at The German Marshall Fund of the United States. He served as a counselor for Foreign and National Security Affairs to Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) from 2013-17, serving as his foreign policy advisor during his presidential campaign. Prior to joining Senator Rubio’s staff in February 2013, he served as the executive director of the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI) from its founding in early 2009. Prior to joining FPI, Fly served in the Bush administration at the National Security Council (2008-09) and in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (2005-08). His articles and reviews have been published in a wide variety of outlets in the United States and Europe. For his work in the Department of Defense, he was awarded the Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Public Service. Fly received a B.A. in international studies and political science from American University and an M.A. in German and European studies from Georgetown University.
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Ambassador Alberto M. Fernandez is President of the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Inc. (MBN). MBN provides news and information in Arabic to the Middle East and North Africa. As President of MBN, Amb. Fernandez oversees and manages two television networks (Alhurra and Alhurra-Iraq); two radio streams Sawa Iraq and Sawa Levant; and all of MBN’s digital and social media properties including, Alhurra.com, RadioSawa.com, Irfaasawtak.com, AlSaha.com and MaghrebVoices.com. According to international research firms such as Gallup, Alhurra and Radio Sawa have an unduplicated weekly reach of more than 25 million people in the Middle East. Sponsored by the U.S. government, MBN’s mission is to broadcast accurate, timely and relevant news and information about the region, the world and the United States to a broad, Arabic-speaking audience. Prior to joining MBN, Amb. Fernandez was Vice-President of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) and is a member of the board of directors at the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security (CCHS) at George Washington University. He is also a non-resident Fellow in Middle East Politics and Media at the TRENDS research and advisory center in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. He was a Foreign Service Officer from 1983 to 2015 and served as the State Department’s Coordinator for the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications from 2012 to 2015. He also served as U.S. Ambassador to Equatorial Guinea and U.S. Charge d’Affaires to Sudan. He held senior public diplomacy positions at the U.S. embassies in Afghanistan, Jordan, Syria, Guatemala, Kuwait, and in the Department’s Near East Affairs (NEA) Bureau. Amb. Fernandez was a career member of the U.S. Senior Foreign Service with the rank of Minister-Counselor, he was a recipient of a 2008 Presidential Meritorious Service Award, the 2006 Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Public Diplomacy, a 2003 Superior Honor Award for his work in Afghanistan, among many other awards. A graduate of the University of Arizona (B.A. and M.A.) and the Defense Language Institute, he served in the U.S. Army and came to the United States as a refugee from Cuba in 1959. He has published in Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal, the AFPC World Almanac of Islamism, Defense Dossier, Journal of International Security Affairs, Providence, WINEP Policy Brief, the Foreign Service Journal, “Cipher Brief,” MEMRI, Brookings “Markaz,” Georgetown Cornerstone, ReVista: the Harvard Review of Latin America, Middle East Quarterly, the Journal of the Assyrian Academic Society (JAAS), and lectured and debated on U.S. foreign policy in numerous international and academic venues. He speaks fluent Spanish and Arabic in addition to English.
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Parameswaran Ponnudurai
Vice President of Programming, RFA
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Matthew Walsh joined USAGM from a nearly nine-year career at the U.S. Department of State, where he most recently worked as Senior Advisor for United Nations Political Affairs. Previously at the State Department, Walsh served as a member of the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff and as a key advisor to the Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, among other jobs. Prior to his tenure at State, Walsh worked at the U.S. Agency for International Development in several roles. Walsh is a 2006 graduate of the University of Notre Dame, holds a Master’s in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, and is a Council on Foreign Relations Term Member.
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United States Agency for Global Media

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Excellence and personal sacrifice honored at annual Burke Award Ceremony

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