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ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Thank you Antonio, and thank you to the Kurt Schork Memorial Fund and the Thomson Reuters Foundation for inviting me to take part in recognizing this year’s Kurt Schork Awards in International Journalism.
This is the 20th anniversary of the Kurt Schork Awards, which means it has been over two decades since we lost Kurt—one of the bravest, most tenacious journalists I have ever known. In Bosnia, where I had the chance to work with Kurt in the 1990s, he seemed to me almost invincible. Whether there or later covering conflicts in places like Afghanistan or Chechnya, Kurt took profound risks in order to expose truths that people did not want reported.
In April of 1993, Kurt wrote a dispatch for Reuters from under siege in Sarajevo. The content says a lot about his instincts as a reporter, and even more I think, about his motivation for being a reporter. “Every day,” he wrote, “I see the grace and dignity of ordinary people trying to survive under extraordinary circumstances.”
Kurt believed he could make a difference by showing the world that grace and dignity: the human cost of a brutal, senseless conflict and the humanity and resilience of the Bosnian people. And with his eye for detail, his bravery, and his determination that the world see what he saw, he did make a difference, producing some of the most vivid, impactful, and influential journalism of the war.
I feel personally blessed that I got to watch Kurt in action. I saw firsthand the relationships he built, and the care he took not just to describe what was happening to Bosnia, but to do whatever was necessary to show the world what this war was doing to individuals, and to make it as hard as possible for those in positions of power to look away.
As one Kosovar journalist said of Kurt: “In his stories, a conflict became understood and the participants in the conflict had a face, had a name, had a story to tell.”
I know of no other journalist with a street named in his honor in a place where he reported. “He showed the whole world the truth about the war,” reads the plaque in Sarajevo on Kurt Schork Street. The final resting place for some of Kurt’s ashes are next to the burial site of a 25 year-old Muslim and Serb couple who were killed during the war, their heartbreaking story immortalized in Kurt’s reporting.
Kurt became a journalist relatively late in life—in his 40s—and was inspired to take such a big leap in part because of his admiration for John F. Kennedy, who spoke about the potential for individuals to work together in building freedom, brotherhood, and peace in the world.
I, someone inspired by Kurt, find myself taking part in this year’s Awards Ceremony as the Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development—an agency established in 1961 by President Kennedy in pursuit of these very ideals.
Today, USAID helps support journalists in over 30 countries, including with protection and legal assistance for those under threat. Our programs help foster independent, fact-based journalism—work we know is foundational for healthy societies and prosperous economies. USAID, for example, is a supporter of investigative journalism consortiums, including those that most recently helped bring the Pandora Papers to light.
For telling the truth and informing the public, journalists are often placed at great risk. This is certainly true of the journalists we are honoring today, who have reported on the war in Afghanistan, extrajudicial killings in Brazil, searing atrocities in Syria, child labor in Pakistan, and the criminal justice system in Nigeria.
Their work has shined a light on the realities of war and conflict, and exposed human rights abuses, discrimination, and corruption. And their commitment to speaking truth to power comes at a critical moment for journalism.
As Antonio highlighted and as you are all too aware, attacks on journalists—physical attacks, legal attacks, political attacks, and attacks on press freedoms in general—have been on the rise. The United States stands with the courageous journalists, independent media organizations, and freelancers and stringers, throughout the world that carry on reporting despite these threats.
All of us who knew Kurt, knew him as someone who refused to be silenced. His legacy lives on in the stories researched, written, investigated, and reported by the fearless journalists being honored today, and all those pounding the pavement to bring truth to light in difficult and dangerous situations throughout the world.
Your work matters enormously. Thank you for what you do.
And congratulations to the winners of the 2020 and 2021 Kurt Schork Awards in International Journalism.