Coverage of Duterte’s war on drugs wins media excellence awards

The gripping news coverage of President Duterte’s bloody war on drugs and the fight against the Islamic State-inspired militants in Marawi City, two defining elements of his presidency, have brought honor to Filipino and foreign journalists.

The Society of Publishers in Asia (Sopa), a nonprofit that champions press freedom in the Asia-Pacific region, on Wednesday handed out its annual awards for excellent journalistic works in traditional and new media, including the reportage on the tragic plight of Myanmar’s minority Rohingya, President Duterte’s drug war and the five-month battle for Marawi.

“By recognizing their excellence, we hope to inspire and encourage journalists to keep producing work of the highest quality,” said Cliff Buddle, chair of the Sopa editorial committee.

Reuters

Reuters, which recently won the Pulitzer Prize for its reports on the war on drugs in the Philippines, received four awards of excellence and four honorable mentions from Sopa. The reports were published by the Inquirer.

“Duterte’s war falters” by Reuters won the award for excellence in human rights reporting, and its “Duterte’s war on drugs” grabbed the excellence in information graphics award. Reuters also was a finalist for excellence in investigative reporting for “Duterte’s killer cops.”

Judges called the coverage of the bloody antidrug campaign in the Philippines “excellent and dangerous reporting on one of the biggest human rights issues in Asia.”

ABS-CBN News’ special digital report on the war on drugs written and photographed by Fernando Sepe Jr., a former Associated Press  photojournalist, received the excellence in feature writing award.

“Healing the wounds from the drug war” reported on how several relatives of victims of the government’s crackdown on narcotics coped following the deaths of their loved ones and breadwinners.

Sepe, news.abs-cbn.com’s deputy editor for multimedia, covered the crime scenes and the burials of those who fell in the antidrug campaign and reported on how their families struggled to move on.

Time photographer James Nachtwey’s “In Manila, Death Comes by Night” received honorable mention in photography as his “dramatic use of black and white accentuates and underscores the horror of death and the tragedy that it spreads on the affected families” in the images of Mr. Duterte’s bloody campaign against drugs.

Marawi siege

ABS-CBN News’ special digital report on the Marawi siege also received honorable mention for excellence in explanatory reporting.

“‘Buhay pa kami’: Dispatches from Marawi,” written by Jeff Canoy with photos by Val Cuenca, told of the five-month-long war that devastated the Islamic city.

William Pesek of Nikkei Asian Review won the award for excellence in opinion writing for his piece, “Philippine peso flashes warning signs for Dutertenomics.”

Public service journalism

Reuters coverage of the Rohingya crisis won the Sopa award for public service journalism and the excellence in journalistic innovation prize.

Sopa cited one of the Reuters journalists currently detained for covering the plight of the Rohingya, saying his ordeal “shows the ongoing challenges facing the media, the strong commitment and courage of journalists as well the need for the whole community to stand up for press freedom.”

Addressing the awards ceremonies in Hong Kong on Wednesday night as keynote speaker was Maria Ressa, the executive officer and editor of Rappler.

Ressa warned about threats to press freedom globally and specifically in Southeast Asia, particularly in the Philippines and also about the challenges faced by news organizations in the age of social media.—REPORTS FROM INQUIRER RESEARCH, AND ANC