In February this year I hosted the 2020 Courage in Journalism Award.

Founded in 2018, the award is given posthumously to a journalist who has been killed in the course of doing their job. This year, the award went to Raed Fares, a Syrian radio broadcaster.

In the course of producing this year’s Award, I had the privilege of meeting and interviewing Fares’ son, who told me about his father’s life and legacy. I also interviewed the Mexican investigative journalist Anabel Hernandez, who told me about the various attempts made on her life in response to her reporting on corruption. It is too dangerous for Anabel to live in Mexico and so we met at an undisclosed location.

Establishing and running this award is one of the proudest things I’ve done professionally. It shines a much-needed light on the issue of declining media freedom around the world and champions the great work of journalists — who are still too often targeted for simply doing their job. The video of this year’s ceremony is below.

Last year I wrote a short piece for Reaction to coincide with the presentation of the 2019 Award: https://reaction.life/remember-courageous-journalists-defy-decline-press-freedom/

And finally, here’s a short thread on the 2020 Award: https://twitter.com/NathanGamester/status/1232617857210605568