Awards in journalism and photojournalism are numerous. But winners taking the time to use their acceptance speech to raise important questions, to question ourselves and our methods, are rare. This is an incredibly articulate speech by Matthieu Aikins, on journalism, grievablility, and courage: In the end, it’s moral, not physical, courage that counts. The world has enough brave boys. Our courage has to be in service of a struggle for justice that is far more important than us. I confess that I’m increasingly troubled by the figure of the war correspondent as a hero. Is it linked somehow to the American cult of the soldier and cop, which idolizes power and sanitizes violence? To me the Navy nurse who refuses to force-feed prisoners at Guantanamo demonstrated a courage rarer and more necessary to our world than the Navy SEAL who says he killed Bin Laden. The dignity and perseverance of parents who try to provide some kind of emotional and physical security for their kids in a place like Aleppo astounds me more than any gutsy scoop there by me or my colleagues.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Dec 2014 19:03:26 +0000