The UN Correspondents Association chose the Wall Street Journal, independent filmmaker Theodore Folke and the British Broadcasting Corporation for its top journalism prizes on Friday. Each of the UNCA's first prize winners for print journalism, broadcast and humanitarian reporting, received $10,000 at a black tie dinner. The Wall Street Journal team won for a series on UN activities around the world written by Robert Block, Alix Freedman, Carla Anne Robbins, Jess Bravin, Steve Stecklow.
The funds for the print journalism award came from the Boston Globe and UNCA in honour of Elizabeth Neuffer, the UN correspondent for the Globe killed in Iraq in May 2003.
Second prize in this category was a $1,000 award given to Bivan Saluseki of The Sunday Post of Zambia for his feature on life in a UN camp for Congolese refugees.
Folke, an independent filmmaker for the US-based Samba Project, received the gold medal for broadcasting for his film on East Timor, the former Portuguese colony that the United Nations ushered to independence from Indonesia.
The award is in honour of Ricardo Ortega, the Spanish journalist killed as he covered street protests in Haiti last March. His former employer, the Spanish TV station Antena 3, sponsored the $10,000 award.