An Associated Press team that reported on slave labor in the southeast Asian fishing industry won the 2016 Anthony Shadid Award for Journalism Ethics UW-Madison announced Friday.
The UW-Madison Center for Journalism Ethics bestows the award annually in honor of journalism alumnus and Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Shadid, who died in 2012 due to health complications in Syria, according to a university release.
A team of reporters investigated an Asian “slave island” when they learned any slave that spoke with them could be executed. Because of this, the AP team and their editors decided to rescue their sources before they published the initial story online.
AP reporters Martha Mendoza, Margie Mason, Robin McDowell and Esther Htusan worked on the stories and helped free more than 2,000 slaves, according to the release.
“The AP defied convention by taking responsibility for the welfare and safety of the slaves, who were willing to face death to tell their stories,” said chair of the judging committee Jack Mitchell in the release. “The journalists got the men to safety before publishing the stories.”
The team will be honored at a “Race, Ethnicity and Journalism Ethics” conference April 29, and Nada Shadid, Anthony Shadid’s widow, will present the award to the AP team.
Mendoza and McDowell will participate in a panel at the conference this year to discuss the ethical difficulties they faced while pursuing the story. Award-winning New York Times Magazine reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones will be the keynote speaker at the event.
