Connecticut Independent Reporting Award To Journalist Dahr Jamail - 2009

Connecticut September 20, 2009

Journalist Dahr Jamail Biography here. Dahr covered Iraq for nine months, and conducted his first radio interview with WHUS at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, Connecticut. We thought it fitting that we honor him in our own small way after so many have honored him worldwide.

After starting out on a self funded trip to Iraq to 'get the real story' Dahr Jamail became a war correspondent and independent journalist with top credentials. He currently writes for the Inter Press Service, Le Monde Diplomatique, and many other outlets. His stories have also been published with The Nation, The Sunday Herald in Scotland, Al-Jazeera, the Guardian, Foreign Policy in Focus, and the Independent to name just a few. Dahr’s dispatches and hard news stories have been translated into French, Polish, German, Dutch, Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese, Chinese, Arabic and Turkish. On radio as well as television, Dahr reports for Democracy Now!, has appeared on the BBC and NPR, and numerous other stations around the globe. Dahr is also special correspondent for Flashpoints.

Dahr’s reporting has earned him numerous awards, including the prestigious 2008 Martha Gellhorn Award for Journalism, The Lannan Foundation Writing Residency Fellowship, the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism, the Joe A. Callaway Award for Civic Courage, and four Project Censored awards.

The WHUS Radio community and independent media from Storrs and other parts of the state, proudly adds our award to theirs.

WHUS Radio FM 91.7 staff and volunteers from L to R, Thomas Danahy, David Haseltine, Public Affairs Director, Dori Smith, Talk Nation Radio, first produced at WHUS, now syndicated with Pacifica Network, John Murphy, WHUS General Manager, Dahr Jamail, (Beyond the Green Zone, Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq, and The Will to Resist, Soldiers who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Richard Sherman, Architect and radio producer, former WHUS Radio program, From A Distant Shore.

The award was also presented by Ben Shaiken, WHUS Operations Manager, Joseph G. Smith, Talk Nation Radio, and more listed below who join us in expressing our deep appreciation to Dahr Jamail, for his hard news and analysis offered to state audiences from Iraq, and then in 2006 from Lebanon, and eventually from a wide variety of places. 2003 - 2009!

We cerebrated Dahr's international success at an event sponsored by WHUS Radio and UCONN's student newspaper The Daily Campus as well as the UCONN Free Press, included in the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center library Alternative Press Collection.

The awards committee also announces the creation of the Dahr Jamail Independent Reporting Collection Fund. We have begun organizing the body of Dahr Jamail's writing, his books, articles, radio and TV interviews, and photographs, from 2003 through 2009, and these will be installed as The Dahr Jamail Collection at Connecticut libraries.

Please write to talknationradio@gmail.com if you wish to join us in celebrating the contributions Dahr Jamail has made to our understanding of the Iraq War and the reality of U.S. foreign and military policies. We can arrange to receive your donation and add your name to the list below.

Dahr Jamail was first heard on WHUS Radio shortly after he went to Iraq in 2003. He reported as an independent, without becoming embedded with the U.S. Military.

Back in 2003 the station was at Rosebrooks, the 'farmhouse' as it was affectionately called. We phoned Iraq at all sorts of times of day and night, reaching Dahr as he covered the chaotic first year of war. He would describe events on the ground and tie them in with political developments both in Iraq and at home in America. And so we marked many landmarks with Dahr Jamail on the phone with us.



Dahr was the first reporter to offer us a sense of the scale of the damage done to Iraq's infrastructure and to civilian homes. Nasir Fadlawi, 48 years old and the manager elect of Qasim’s compound in which 135 families live (750 people).

He spoke with many Iraqis, and with physicians trying to help wounded civilians in hospitals that were short on supplies to begin with. Many like, Al Qa'im Hospital, were damaged by US bombing. Looters then stole even the antiquated equipment on hand to deal with casualties of the bombing. This was the level of care in Iraq during 2003 and things did not improve over the years 2004 through 2008 and 2009. ...An old operating table at Al-Kerkh Hospital in Baghdad. [Photos by Dahr Jamail and Sabah Ali, owned by Dahr Jamail.]

Reconstruction efforts were in disarray and then we learned from Dahr Jamail how Iraqi Ministries looted US funds intended for reconstruction and government agencies. We will list some of Dahr's reports to WHUS here soon. Meanwhile, you can go to his web site to learn more about his reporting, his books, and his many contributions to films and other educational events www.dahr.org

The following people join us in honoring Dahr Jamail as the Connecticut Independent Media Award Committee and friends! Thanks Dahr!

David Morse, Journalist and Author, guest host of Talk Nation Radio.
Christopher Duray, Editor in Chief, The Daily Campus, University of Connecticut
Jason Ortiz, President , American Civil Liberties University, UCONN.
Dave Bauer, The Bauer Hour, WESU 88.1 Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT
John Schwenk, WRTC 89.3 FM Hartford, Wrench in the Works, Willimantic, CT
Scott Harris, Between the Lines, WPKN 88.5 Bridgeport, 88.7 Montauk, Westerly, RI
Miriam Kurland,'Wrench in the Works, Willimantic, CT, Mike DeRosa, WWUH, FM.91.3 New Focus, University of Hartford, West Hartford, Kenneth Dowst, New World Notes, FM 91.3 WWUH, University of Hartford, W. Hartford, Kevin Lamkins, RadioActive, FM.91.3 WWUH, University of Hartford, W. Hartford, Rob Tyrka, The Hartford Independent Media Collective, and SoapBox, WWUH FM 91.3, University of Hartford, W. Hartford, CT, John Holder, The Hartford Independent Media Collective Dr. Helma De Vries, Political Science Dept., Eastern Connecticut State University, Dr. Charlie W. Prewitt, Peace and Human Rights Studies, Eastern Connecticut State University Jamshid A. Marvasti M.D, We Refuse to Be Enemies, Manchester, CT, Daniel Piper, Connecticut United for Peace Marissa Blaszko, Connecticut Students Against the War, Media Activist
James W. Russell, ECSU, University Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work, Stanley Heller, Producer, The Struggle TV.

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