Mexican journalist Adela Navarro Bello has been named one of winners of the International Women’s Media Foundation’s 2011 Courage in Journalism Awards. The awards, which honor women journalists who risk their lives reporting on violence in their countries, will be presented Thursday, Oct. 27, at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York, according to IWMF. The award winners also were recognized in Los Angeles on Monday, Oct. 24.
Navarro, the general director of the Tijuana-based magazine Zeta, has written for 21 years about governmental corruption and drug trafficking in the border city of Tijuana, Mexico. Because of her reporting, she has been the target of death threats from Mexican drug cartels.
Navarro became editor of the award-winning Zeta after her predecessor, Francisco Ortiz, was shot to death. She is a former recipient of the Committee to Protect Journalists' International Press Freedom Award.
“In my country...it's possible to kill a reporter and nothing will happen to you," Navarro said, as quoted by the Los Angeles Times, adding that she won’t stop reporting because "I've been poisoned with the truth."
Parisa Hafezi, the bureau chief for Reuters in Iran, and Chiranuch Premchaiporn, editor for the news site Prachatai in Thailand, also are recipients of this year’s IWMF courage awards.
Katie Adie, BBC’s first female chief news correspondent, will be honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award for reporting from the front lines for the past 40 years, including covering the wars in Bosnia and Sierra Leone.
“These courageous women have endured terrible hardships, without questioning their own safety. They face danger and violence to report the day’s most important stories, despite being targeted by authorities,” said IWMF Board Co-Chair Barbara Cochran as quoted by IWMF. “We are honored to tell the world their stories.”
