Sunday, May. 08, 2005

Recognition on Many Fronts

A PROFILE IN COURAGE

Michael Ware chooses to keep quiet about certain aspects of Baghdad life: the careful, tedious planning to bolster the security of staff members as they gather reporting, the anxious waiting for a colleague who has not shown up on time, the instinctive action taken in a dangerous situation to avoid disaster. As TIME's bureau chief in the bomb-blasted city, Ware has been through his share of harrowing silence. Yet it has not hampered his ability to put into words the explosive stories that have made our coverage of the conflict in Iraq stand out over the past two years. Last month he shared the prestigious Ed Cunningham Memorial award for best magazine reporting from abroad, presented by the Overseas Press Club in New York City. The OPC cited his courage in delineating the changing face and nature of the insurgency in Iraq. In turn, as he accepted the prize, Michael cited the courage and suffering of his friends in that country, some dead, others injured, a few once held in savage captivity but now free.

CELEBRATING THE DOCUMENTARY

The documentary film reached blockbuster proportions last year when Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 set box-office records and the filmmaker appeared on the cover of TIME. A trend that's equally worthy of celebrating is the democratization of the documentary, thanks to digital camcorders and the idealistic urge of citizens to tell a story. As journalists, we at TIME feel a kinship with such filmmakers and decided this year to lend our name and support to the documentaries in competition at the Tribeca Film Festival. Now in its fourth year, the fast-growing festival, held in downtown Manhattan, screened more than 250 films of all kinds from 45 countries and sold 135,000 tickets. The award for best documentary feature went to El Perro Negro: Stories from the Spanish Civil War, by director Peter Forgacs, a collage brilliantly assembled from the work of two amateur filmmakers of the period. The prize for best documentary short went to director Dan Krauss for The Life of Kevin Carter, the tragic story of a photojournalist who took one of the most memorable pictures of our time, of a vulture stalking a starving child in Sudan.

BOLD CRUSADERS FOR GOOD HEALTH

One of the things we take pride in doing at TIME is helping set a national agenda. Last year, after health researchers announced that two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese, we published a 32-page special report on the problem. Also, TIME president Eileen Naughton, along with sciences editor Philip Elmer-DeWitt, organized a conference in Williamsburg, Va., to address the issue. Co-sponsored by ABC News and supported by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the summit called together 400 leaders in the medical, corporate and public-policy fields to unravel how Americans got themselves into such a fix and how to get out of it. Last week the American Diabetes Association named Naughton, along with childhood nutritionist Christina Economos and professor of nutrition Miriam Nelson, its Women of Valor for 2005. Said Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, CEO of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: "Eileen sets very high standards for herself and everyone around her and is not afraid to do things differently."