Worldfocus: Crisis in Congo videos receive Emmy nomination
Worldfocus was nominated for an Emmy in the “Best story in a regularly scheduled newscast” category for our coverage of the “Crisis in Congo” (Executive Producer: Marc Rosenwasser, Correspondent: Michael J. Kavanagh of the Pulitzer Center, Producers: Lisa Biagiotti, Taylor Krauss).
The “Crisis in Congo” videos also won the 2009 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award in the international television category.
War in DR Congo: The story of Pascal and Vestine
Rape as a weapon of war
For original article: Worldfocus receives two Emmy nominations!
Columbia J-School: Lisa Biagiotti wins RFK Journalism Award
Lisa Biagiotti ‘08 has won a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award in the international television category for “War in DR Congo,” a Worldfocus production.
“War in DR Congo” honors the victims of a humanitarian crisis often ignored by the mainstream media. Over five million people have died, mostly from preventable disease and starvation, in Congo’s decade-long civil war. In the last year alone, more than a million people have fled the fighting. Such staggering data on death and displacement in the region often overshadows the personal stories of human suffering, which this report brings to life.
Marc Rosenwasser, Michael J. Kavanagh and Taylor Krauss share this honor with Biagiotti, who specialized in new media at the Journalism School.
Biagiotti is also the executive editor of Worldfocus.org and has produced online content for the PBS foreign affairs documentary series “Wide Angle,” the J-School Web magazine NYC24 and the Queens blog “Junction BLVD.” In 2001, Lisa received a Fulbright grant to research Muslim immigration in Italy and currently serves on the New York board of the Fulbright Association.
The Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights announced winners in nine professional and four student categories of the 41st Annual Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards. The winning pieces examine the causes, conditions and remedies of injustice and analyze relevant public policies and attitudes and private endeavors.
For original article: Lisa Biagiotti ‘08 wins RFK Journalism Award
Worldfocus: Rape as a weapon of war in DR Congo
War has raged through the Democratic Republic of Congo for more than a decade — it has been called the deadliest conflict since World War II.
The United Nations estimates that 200,000 women and girls have been raped in that time, some victims as young as three years old.
Both the Congolese army and rebel groups have used rape as a weapon of war.
Armed groups use rape to tear apart families, spread disease and weaken communities. Women are often victimized doubly — first by their rapists and secondly by spouses or family members who then find it dishonorable or socially unacceptable to associate with them.
Worldfocus correspondent Michael J. Kavanagh of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and video journalist Taylor Krauss recently reported from eastern Congo. Together with Lisa Biagiotti, they produced this signature story.
Watch a companion Web-original video: Rehabilitating rape victims and families in Congo.
Wide Angle: Public Health Experts on Maternal Death
EXPERT INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT: LYNN FREEDMAN AND HELEN de PINHO
WIDE ANGLE sat down with Lynn Freedman and Helen de Pinho from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. They work with developing countries and international agencies to improve availability and quality of emergency obstetric care for women in childbirth.
Here is the transcript of our discussion on the causes of maternal death, the importance of maternal health and the progress that is being made in Mozambique and around the world now that this issue is on the international development agenda.
Lynn Freedman is a human rights attorney and the Director of AMDD, Averting Maternal Death and Disability. Helen de Pinho is a physician from South Africa who works with AMDD. She recently traveled to Mozambique to meet with mid-level medical providers there.
LYNN FREEDMAN: Women everywhere in the world who die in childbirth die from basically the same set of causes. Mostly direct obstetric causes—things like bleeding, or hemorrhaging, infection, obstructed labor. We know the medical interventions that will save a woman’s life if she has one of those complications. The big, big issue is getting those medical interventions to the women who need them, and so that’s where the big challenge comes in—ensuring that women in remote rural areas, women who perhaps don’t have the money to get to a facility much less get into the facility, pay for the services. To make sure women in
that position get access to life-saving care.
There’s no question that the current number of surgeons and surgical technicians in Mozambique cannot meet the enormous need for emergency obstetric care.
HELEN DE PINHO: There are 26 obstetricians in Mozambique. Fourteen of them are in the central hospital in Maputo, and I think only about three or four or five are actually out in the rural area, so that gives you an idea of distribution and numbers. And a similar kind of distribution pattern for surgeons in Mozambique. The role of the non-physician clinician has always been there in many of these countries; that’s not new. The surgical midwife, yes, that is new. And that will change, but what that would do is strengthen what’s already
happening. It doesn’t shift…it doesn’t displace doctors in any way, because they’re just simply not there.
WIDE ANGLE: Lynn, you mentioned that there’s this new energy about addressing maternal mortality. Can you speak about this new energy, where it’s come from, and why now?
LYNN FREEDMAN: Well, I think maternal mortality has…has certainly risen to the top of the development agenda, helped enormously by the fact that it is one of the Millennium Development Goals.
The Millennium Development Goals are a set of eight goals that the U.N. general assembly passed at the turn of the millennium in the year 2000 to guide poverty reduction efforts in the world in the coming millennium, or at least the coming 15 years.
But they also include three health goals. One is HIV, TB and Malaria. Another is to reduce child mortality. And MDG 5 is to improve maternal health with two goals: one is to reduce maternal mortality by
75% and the second target under improved maternal health is to have universal access to reproductive health services.
So that has put maternal mortality itself on the health and development agenda.
HELEN DE PINHO: …if I can just talk to what’s happening in Mozambique at that. What we see is first of all very high-level commitment to reducing maternal mortality. And then also to—recognizing the sort of continuum of care, from when the woman first becomes pregnant or even before she comes pregnant, to make sure that –that young girls are adequately fed, that—that they are nutritionally well—well-nourished. That there is family planning accessible. The policies are good, they’re there. And now it’s a matter of actually getting them implemented in all the areas.
WIDE ANGLE: How will that later affect the health of the entire system?
LYNN FREEDMAN: Well, there’s no question that a huge proportion of newborn deaths are actually attributable to the things that happen during pregnancy and delivery. We certainly want to make sure we pay
attention to and care about the woman herself and her survival. But, we also acknowledge that the survival and life of a newborn is very closely linked to what happens to the mother and indeed, the life, well-being and survival of the rest of her family, not just the baby she’s giving birth to right then. The ramifications of maternal death or maternal survival go well beyond just her children. It’s her family, it’s her community, it’s productive work for the country, and it’s her own right to be a participating member for society.
WIDE ANGLE: Thank you Lynn, and thank you, Helen.
LYNN FREEDMAN: Our pleasure.
HELEN DE PINHO: It is a pleasure, thank you.
Wide Angle: American Midwives ‘Catch Babies’ in Hospitals
WIDE ANGLE explores the often misunderstood role of midwives in the U.S. We learn about who they are, what they do and where they practice. While midwives attend births in most of the world, physician-attended births are the norm in the U.S.
I produced this video with Lauren Feeney: American Midwives ‘Catch Babies’ in Hospitals.
Theme design by Borja Fernandez.