Christina Goldbaum – ‘Strong evidence that U.S. Special Operations Forces massacred civilians in Somalia’, The Daily Beast

Christina Goldbaum is an independent reporter and producer based in Kenya and Somalia. She works in print, still photography and television covering human rights, humanitarian crises and conflict. Her print bylines include the New York Times, Foreign Policy Magazine, the Economist and the Wall Street Journal and has shot news segments and documentaries for PBS NewsHour, VICE, Al Jazeera and others.

Special Mention:

Carole Cadwalladr – ‘Cambridge Analytica’, Guardian/Observer

Carole Cadwalladr is a features writer for the Observer and formerly worked for the Daily Telegraph. Her outstanding investigations into Brexit malpractice have had particular impact in Britain this year.

BROADCAST

Olivier Sarbil & James Jones – ‘The fight for Mosul’, Channel 4

Olivier Sarbil is a French documentary director and cinematographer based in London. Over the past decade, Olivier has covered conflicts and critical social issues across Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe.

James Jones is a British director who makes films for international television and theatrical release. His films have covered countries like North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and, most recently the Philippines for a feature documentary about the drugs war that he is making with Olivier.

PHOTOJOURNALISM

Khalil Hamra – ‘Gaza protests driven by desperation’, AP

Khalil Hamra is a Palestinian photographer born in Kuwait who works for the AP. He made the news himself when he was injured while documenting demonstrations in Tahrir Square during the 2011 Egyptian revolution.

PHIL REES – ‘Al Jazeera Investigates – Genocide Agenda’, Al Jazeera

After 23 years as a senior producer and correspondent with the BBC, Phil is now the Manager of Investigative Journalism at al Jazeera Media Network.

Judges: This presented complex evidence compellingly, with heart-breaking interviews, and some tremendous graphics. There were telling interviews with a racist Buddhist monk, and local officials which explained why things have become so bad for the Rohingya Muslims – facing vicious persecution. The programme took a three-dimensional view of the history of the conflict, with a nuanced view of recent history that was so much more refreshing than the usual binary tit-for-tat claim and counterclaim. Phil Rees is an experienced and accomplished journalist who has made a film in the best traditions of Frontline. 

PHOTOJOURNALISM

PAOLO PELLEGRIN – ‘Fractured Lands: How The Arab World Came Apart’, The New York Times Magazine

Judges: Paolo Pellegrin’s work is an example of great engagement with a complex, and violent story over many years. It is work of high intellectual and visual integrity that is simultaneously direct, thoughtful and nuanced. The judges felt that the New York Times Magazine should be congratulated for it’s thoughtful and powerful publication of the work with Scott Anderson’s accompanying written essay that gave context to the current migration crisis. 

PRINT

UMER ALI – ‘Junaid Hafeez: condemned forever?’, Dawn

Umer Ali is a freelance journalist based in Pakistan. He covers human rights, social issues, terrorism and more. He’s currently working with News Deeply, covering the repatriation of Afghan refugees from Pakistan and with local papers to cover a range of issues – from blasphemy cases to LGBT issues.

MULTIMEDIA

SCOTT ANDERSON & PAOLO PELLEGRIN – ‘Fractured Lands: How the Arab World World Came Apart’, The New York Times Magazine

Judges: The article shows reflection, perspective and context. It is reported, written and photographed to a very high standard. Both authors have reported on this story since the beginning with courage, intelligence, perception and élan. The judges also felt that the New York Times Magazine should be congratulated for it’s thoughtful and powerful publication of such work.

Tribute

 JOHN G. MORRIS

John G Morris is a legend in the photographic world and has spent a lifetime editing photographs for magazines and newspapers, working with hundreds of photographers. He worked for the weekly picture magazine Life throughout World War II. As Life’s London Picture Editor he was responsible for the coverage of the invasion of France on June 6, 1944 – D-Day, thus editing the historic photos of Robert Capa. After the war he became successively the Picture Editor of the U.S. monthly Ladies’ Home Journal, Executive Editor of Magnum Photos,^[Assistant Managing Editor for Graphics of The Washington Post and Picture Editor of The New York Times.

In 1983 he moved to Paris, as the European correspondent of National Geographic. John turned 100 on 7th of December this year and as a freelance writer and editor, his primary concern is working for peace. John has travelled to London for the awards ceremony and we were deeply honoured to hand him the richly deserved Tribute Award.

JEREMY BOWEN, NIKKI MILLARD, LINA SINJAB AND CARA SWIFT, FOR YEMEN: HUMAN COST OF SAUDI-LED BOMBING CAMPAIGN, BBC NEWS

BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen, camera operator Nikki Millard and correspondent Lina Sinjab, managed to get to Sanaa in the early stages of the Saudi-led offensive against the Houthis. They reveal powerful new evidence of the plight of civilians in Yemen, where civil war has led to thousands of deaths. The report was produced by Cara Swift from Amman.

This report took the viewer into a new battleground – uncovering the layers of complexity in Yemen, and telling powerful personal stories. It was powerfully and sensitively shot and edited by Nikki Millard – a distinguished videographer at the top of his game. And it was beautifully crafted and written by Jeremy Bowen. The award is also a tribute to Jeremy’s continuing commitment and skill in reporting the Middle East. Harrowing images but filmed and scripted with real humanity. This report is part of a great body of work produced by two of the finest frontline journalists of our generation.

Photojournalism

MAURICIO LIMA, FOR HIS BODY OF WORK ON THE CONFLICT IN SYRIA AND THE RESULTING
FLOW OF REFUGEES THROUGH EUROPE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Mauricio Lima is an independent documentary photographer focused on the lives of those affected by social crisis and armed conflict. He has worked frequently in Afghanistan, Brazil, Iraq, Libya, Portugal and Ukraine. His work frequently appears in The New York Times and Al Jazeera America. With the Syrian conflict now in its fifth year, almost half of the country’s 22 million pre-war population has been affected by the war. Many have fled their homes, risking their lives in dangerous boat trips, illegal border crossings and long bus and train journeys, seeking asylum and a decent life in Europe. The latest UN report from January 2015 estimated that more than 220,000 people had become fatal victims of the endless war in Syria.

This story, like Lima’s work in Ukraine from the year before, is exceptional. The story gives us context; it shows both the causes and consequences of the issue; the narrative is well conceived. The photography is spontaneous yet disciplined and artfully crafted and the project is both enterprising and courageous. This is the work of a photographer in control of his craft.

Print

ANJAN SUNDARAM, FOR ‘A PLACE ON EARTH: SCENES FROM A WAR’, GRANTA

They returned to the beginning. War approached, and the city was being emptied. I walked two miles into the wild with a boy who showed me how Gaga – and the country, the Central African Republic – was being turned inside out. The jungle paths had become the alleyways of a more secretive, older form of civilization: these identical, curving roads without signposts in which I became lost, and these homes of leaves and bent branches. The roofs collapsed in each rain shower, the boy said, and had to be built anew.

Anjan Sundaram is a journalist and the author of Stringer: A Reporter’s Journey in the Congo and Bad News: Last Journalists in a Dictatorship. Sundaram traveled to the most recent sites of conflict in the Central African Republic, burnt-out villages where pigs had taken over their former owner’s homes in an ‘inversion of man and beast, of civilization and nature’.

‘A Place on Earth’ is a deeply unsettling portrayal of the Central African Republic’s continuing sectarian war. Sundaram takes the reader to the very heart of the conflict, with glimpses of a physical and psychological front line that is as mysteriously ill-defined as it is deadly. This is an excellent, highly original piece of reportage and writing, reminiscent of Ryzard Kapuscinki and V.S. Naipaul at their best.

Tribute

SANDY GALL

With a long distinguished career in journalism that began with Reuters in the early 1950s and included coverage of the 1956 Suez Crisis, the Hungarian revolution that same year, and the Congo, Gall moved onto broadcast television in the Sixties as a correspondent for ITN. He reported on the Vietnam War through to the fall of Saigon, was on the scene in the Middle East for both the Six-Day and Yom Kippur wars, and taken prisoner in Idi Amin’s Uganda. In the 1980s, already in his fifties, Gall stayed at the front, reporting frequently on the mujahedin resistance against the Soviet military occupation of Afghanistan. His sustained coverage did a great deal to sensitise the British public about a conflict that was otherwise obscure and undercovered. Gall went beyond that, however, in 1986, setting up a family-run charity he called Sandy Gall’s Afghan Appeal. Aimed at assisting the countless victims of that brutal conflict, the Appeal has helped provide over 20,000 Afghans with artificial limbs, and many more grievously wounded civilians with badly needed physiotherapy. With the courage, humanity, and dedication he has repeatedly brought to the stories he has covered, Sandy Gall has helped establish a new gold standard of behaviour for frontline journalists everywhere, making him a richly deserving recipient of our Frontline Tribute Award.

MEDYAN DAIRIEH

Medyan Dairieh is an award-winning freelance filmmaker with over 15 years’ experience documenting conflicts across the Middle East from Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and Syria.

He spent three weeks embedded with the Islamic State (IS), gaining unprecedented access to the group in Iraq and Syria.

Photojournalism

ERIC BOUVET

Eric Bouvet has been a practising photojournalist since 1981. His work “Heroes from Maidan” for the Eye of Photography and Paris Match covers 20 February 2014, a day that changed Ukraine. In the bloodiest day since unrest began in Kiev, more than 70 people were killed in Maidan.

Print

IONA CRAIG

Iona Craig is an independent journalist based in Sana’a, Yemen where she has been working as The Times Yemen correspondent since 2010. Craig has covered America’s covert war in Yemen for four years. Her winning work “What really happened when a U.S. drone hit a Yemeni wedding convoy?” for Al Jazeera America investigated a US drone attack that left 12 civilians dead. To write the piece, she courageously travelled undercover to the strike site six days after the bombing of a wedding convoy in remote central Yemen.

RANIA ABOUZEID

Rania Abouzeid is a Lebanese–Australian journalist who has covered the Middle East and Pakistan for well over a decade. Her winning piece for Politico, ‘The Jihad Next Door’ was reported on several trips into northern Syria in 2014 with al-Qaeda’s official branch in the country, Jabhat al-Nusra.

Tribute

JAMES FOLEY AND STEVEN SOTLOFF

It is meaningful and appropriate for the Frontline Club members to pay homage and give tribute to two colleagues who were kidnapped, held hostage for years and displayed great dignity and courage before they were executed cruelly and publicly. Freelance journalism is a noble and essential part of the media profession with great traditions and history, especially during times of war. By paying tribute to James Foley and Steven Sotloff we celebrate them and salute the creed that is freelance journalism at a time when many in and outside the media are questioning its right to exist.

BEN ANDERSON

Ben Anderson is a presenter and journalist, who has worked for the BBC and VICE, as well as The Guardian and The Times.

His 2003 series, Holidays in the Axis of Evil, featured Anderson secretly visiting such places as Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Syria. Anderson has furthermore covered gang wars in El Salvador, Maoist insurgents in Bihar and the war in southern Iraq.

Anderson has worked extensively in Afghanistan. His film, Taking on the Taliban, documented the Queen’s Company Grenadier Guards in Helmand, Afghanistan’s most violent province – the film was shortlisted for a BAFTA.

The Frontline Club Award for Broadcast was awarded to Anderson for another piece on Afghanistan, This is What Winning Looks Like. This BBC/VICE documentary covers the American and British troops’ withdrawal, revealing the lack of NATO strategy for the pull-out and the resulting issues for the troops and within the southern province.

Photojournalism

ALI ALI

Ali Noureldine, known to all as Ali Ali, was born in Gaza City and grew up in Gaza and Egypt. He began freelancing for the EPA Gaza bureau at age 17, and joined the agency two years later. He has mostly covered the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. He covered the 2008 war in Gaza and Israel’s withdrawal from the region following the conflict, which he describes as one of the major events in his career.

Ali Ali documents both news events as well as features, focusing on people’s lives in Gaza and how their lives are affected by the conflict.

In 2009, Ali Ali took part in a year-long World Press Photo workshop in 2013, he was also invited for the World Press Joop Swart Masterclass.

He received the 2013 Frontline Club Award for Photojournalism for his series on daily life in Gaza.

Print

PATRICK KINGSLEY

Patrick Kingsley is The Guardian’s Egypt correspondent, his first foreign posting. He won the title of Best New Journalist at the 2013 British Journalism Awards.

Kingsley gained praise for his coverage of the unrest in Egypt during the Arab Spring and was the last person to interview Mohamed Morsi before he was ousted. His article, Killing in Cairo, pieced together the events of the attack on the Muslim Brotherhood sit-in outside the Republican Guards’ club. His investigative journalism exposed the army’s version of events, revealing through eyewitness accounts that the army had moved on the unarmed demonstration.

The Frontline Club Awards’ judges praised his capacity to “create a narrative out of chaos”.

Tribute

DAVID DOUGLAS DUNCAN

David Douglas Duncan can truly be considered one of the best photojournalists of the last century. Born in 1916, his first steps into photography began as a student.

In 1943, Duncan enlisted with the marine corps as the US involved itself in WW2 and became a combat photographer. His images from the front – such as those from the Battle of Okinawa or those taken aboard the USS Missouri – quickly became iconic. After WW2, Duncan joined LIFE magazine, he was stationed in the Middle East and covered the region for 10 years. He also returned to the front line on several occasions to cover the Korean and Vietnam wars; those works were published in his war trilogy: This Is War!, I Protest! and War Without Heroes.

While working for LIFE, Duncan pioneered the use of the technologically advanced Nikkor lenses. The magazine ran his pictures from Palestine, Greece, Turkey, Korea, Japan, India, Egypt, Morocco and Afghanistan.

In 1968, Duncan covered the national conventions for NBC, leading to an interesting and well-received media cross-over in which “pictures story” summaries of the conventions were broadcast on the television. He also frequently photographed Pablo Picasso.

In his career, which spans over 60 years, Duncan has produced hundreds of thousands of images, many of them compiled in his two dozen books.

MANI

Mani is a freelance documentary filmmaker and photojournalist. Since 2011, he has mainly focused on the war in Syria and his work as a filmmaker. His photography has appeared in publications such as Paris Match, Le Monde, The Guardian, The Sunday Times Magazine, Die Zeit and National Geographic Magazine.

He regularly works on assignment for ITN/Channel 4 News and his films have been aired by international broadcasters such as CNN, CBS, France 2, Canal+ and ZDF. His photography from Homs won the Humanitarian Visa d’or Award and was exhibited at the International Festival for Photojournalism in Perpignan, France, in September 2012.

His first film in Syria, Horror of Homs, for which he received the Frontline Club Award, won four further international awards in 2012: the Royal Television Society Award, the Rory Peck Award, the Amnesty International Media Award and the Foreign Press Association Award. The film was also nominated for a BAFTA TV Award in 2013.

BROADCAST (Special Commendation)

PAUL WOOD

Paul Wood is the world affairs correspondent for the BBC. He has covered a dozen wars in 15 years as a BBC foreign correspondent, including conflicts in Bosnia, Macedonia, Chechnya, Darfur, the Palestinian Territories, Afghanistan and Libya.

Wood’s reporting on the Iraq war in 2004 won him a Golden Nymph at the Monte Carlo Festival and a Bayeux Award for War Correspondents. For his coverage of Syria, he was named Journalist of the Year by the UK Foreign Press Association, as well as winning the David Bloom Prize from the US Radio and TV Correspondents’ Association.

He received the Frontline Club Special Commendation for his documentary film Homs: Journey into Hell alongside cameraman Fred Scott.

BROADCAST (Special Commendation)

FRED SCOTT

Fred Scott is a veteran cameraman who has risked his life to bring footage into the homes of millions. He was caught up in friendly fire en route to Baghdad while filming with BBC reporter John Simpson, and was one of the first journalists to be embedded with troops in Iraq. He received the Frontline Club Special Commendation for his camerawork in Homs: Journey into Hell alongside journalist Paul Wood.

PHOTOJOURNALISM

GORAN TOMASEVIC

Born in Belgrade in 1969, Goran Tomasevic has been photographing conflict for nearly 20 years. His career began in 1991 for daily newspaper Politika in the former Yugoslavia. In 1996 he started working for Reuters as a freelance photographer, covering the anti-Milosevic demonstrations.

Tomasevic was based in Baghdad during the Iraq conflict, in Jerusalem during tense times between the Israelis and Palestinians and was a senior photographer in Egypt during the uprising.

In 2003 and 2005 Goran won the Reuters Photographer of the Year Award. Tomasevic is currently covering the conflict in Syria, for which his work 18 Days with the Syrian Rebels won him the Frontline Club Award.

PRINT

GAITH ABDUL AHAD

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad is an Iraqi photojournalist currently living in Lebanon. Born in Baghdad in 1975, he trained as an architect but was conscripted into Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi army, which he deserted.

For six years, Ghaith was forced to live in hiding, changing his residence every few months to avoid detection and arrest. Soon after the US-led coalition forces took control of Baghdad in April 2003, he began writing for The Guardian and The Washington Post.

In 2005 he won the Amnesty International Media Award for his reporting and in June 2006, he received the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism.

Memorial Tribute Award

MARIE COLVIN

Born in 1956, Marie Colvin was an award-winning American journalist. She is remembered for her passionate and courageous reporting, and her ability to encapsulate the suffering of war. She spent the vast majority of her career working as a reporter for The Sunday Times, first as Middle East correspondent and then as Foreign Affairs correspondent.

Colvin’s commitment to reporting the realities and civilian impact of war led to notable assignments in the Balkans, East Timor, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka and Chechnya in a career that spanned 30 years. In 2000, Colvin’s coverage of the developments in Kosovo and Chechnya earned her an award for courage in journalism from the International Women’s Media Foundation, and she was named Journalist of the Year by the Foreign Press Association. She was twice awarded the Foreign Reporter of the Year at the British Press Awards.

In 2001 Colvin was blinded in her left eye while covering the civil war in Sri Lanka – the eyepatch she wore for the rest of her life became something of a trademark.

In February 2012 whilst reporting on the siege of Homs, Syria, Colvin was killed by a shell that hit a makeshift media centre where she was working.

MATTHIEU MAUBIEN

Matthieu Mabin received the Frontline Club Award for his camera work in Libya. Mabin is a special correspondent for France 24 and has worked in Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Ivory Coast. His journey with Libyan rebel forces as they advanced on Tripoli at the end of August in 2011 was made into two extended news pieces entitled The Tripoli Brigade and was broadcast on France 24.

Commenting on the decision to present the 2011 award to Matthieu, Gary Knight, one of the judges, said: “Mabin demonstrated exceptional courage. He also worked on an a well thought out and well constructed narrative story that demanded great journalistic skills and real focus and tenacity – that is something we don’t see enough on TV and the spirit should be saluted.”

Frontline Club Award

NICK DAVIES

Born in 1953, Nick Davies is a freelance journalist who works regularly as special correspondent for The Guardian. In recent years, he was centrally involved in the publication of secret US logs and cables obtained by WikiLeaks and in exposing the phone-hacking scandal.

In 35 years as a reporter, he has specialised in investigating crime, failing schools, poverty, drugs laws and the media. He has been named Journalist of the Year, Feature Writer of the Year and Reporter of the Year in the British Press Awards. He has won the special award for investigative reporting which is given in memory of Martha Gellhorn, Paul Foot and Tony Bevins.

In June 2010, he initiated the alliance of news organisations which published US military and diplomatic secrets which had been obtained by Wikileaks. That series provoked a global debate about US foreign policy and led to The Guardian winning the Newspaper of the Year Award.

Frontline Memorial Tribute

CHRIS HONDROS

Chris Hondros was an American Pulitzer Prize-nominated photojournalist born in 1970. Hondros covered major conflicts across the world including Kosovo, Angola, Sierra Leone, the West Bank, Afghanistan and Iraq. His work appeared on the covers of Newsweek and The Economist, and on the front pages of The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times.

Hondros won many awards during his career, including multiple honors from World Press Photo in Amsterdam, the International Pictures of the Year Competition, the Visa Pour L’Image in France, the John Faber award from the Overseas Press Club and the Robert Capa Gold Medal for his work in Iraq – war photography’s highest honour.

While covering the conflict in Libya, on 20 April 2011 Hondros was killed during a mortar attack which also resulted in the death of his colleague Tim Hetherington.

Frontline Memorial Tribute

TIM HETHERINGTON

Tim Hetherington was a British photojournalist born in Liverpool in 1970. His photography, films and articles sought to document the experience and suffering of war from the human perspective. Hetherington spent the early part of his career in West Africa, documenting political upheaval in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, before switching focus to Afghanistan and the Middle East.

His documentary Restrepo, focusing on a platoon of soldiers in Afghanistan, was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award in 2011 for Best Documentary Feature.

In 2007 Hetherington published a book of photography documenting the civil war in Liberia, entitled Liberia Bit by Bit: Long Story Retold. He also published a book of his photographs from Restrepo entitled Infidel.

Hetherington was killed on 20 April 2011 during a mortar attack by pro-Gaddafi forces on the besieged city of Misrata, Libya. His fellow photojournalist Chris Hondros was also killed.

Frontline Memorial Tribute

ANTON HAMMERL

Anton Hammerl, born 1969, was a South African photojournalist and picture editor. He was mentored by the late Ken Oosterbroek of the Bang Bang Club. Hammerl, a former soldier, turned to photography after seeing action with the South African Defence Force in Angola in the early 1990s. Hammerl made his name covering the major social and political events during the transition from apartheid in South Africa.

During this time he worked for major South African publications The Star and Saturday Star. Later he went freelance, working on assignments for AP, Reuters and other international agencies. Hammerl won numerous prestigious awards for his work, including the World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass, the Abdul Shariff Humanitarian Photographer of the Year, Mondi Shanduka Photographer of the Year and the Fuji Africa News Image of the Year.

In 2011 while covering the Libyan conflict in Brega, Hammerl and three other journalists came under fire from pro-Gaddafi forces. Hammerl was shot and critically wounded, while the other three were captured and imprisoned. Libyan authorities denied his death for six weeks after the shooting and his remains have never been found.

JEROME STARKEY

Jerome Starkey, born 1981, is a British correspondent, investigative journalist and currently Africa correspondent for The Times.

In 2010 Starkey was nearly killed while embedded with British troops in Helmand Province, when an improvised explosive device exploded fewer than 10 metres in front of him. The explosion killed Corporal David Barnsdale and injured two others.

Frontline Memorial Tribute

JOÃO SILVA

João Silva is a Portugese South African photojournalist born in 1966. He made his name covering the transition from apartheid in South Africa, as a member of the Bang Bang Club.

Since then Silva has gained a reputation as one of the world’s most courageous conflict reporters, covering conflicts in Africa, the Balkans and the Middle East. He has won many awards worldwide, including the World Press Photo Award. In 2012 he was honoured with the Portuguese Order of Liberty, awarded to persons for advancing the dignity and freedom of humankind.

Silva spent several years photographing the conflict in Afghanistan for The New York Times. In 2010 whilst patrolling with American soldiers near the town of Arghandab, in southern Afghanistan, he stepped on a mine. Despite immediate help from medics, both his legs were lost below the knees.

EMILIO MORENATTI

Emilio Morenatti is a Spanish photojournalist. Born in 1969, he began working for a local newspaper in 1989. In 1992, he joined the Spanish news agency Efe. He has worked exclusively for AP since March 2004. Morenatti has many years of experience covering conflict, working for AP in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel and the Palestinian Territories.

In 2006, while covering the conflict in Gaza he was kidnapped by gunmen before being released unharmed a day later. He was named 2008 Newspaper Photographer of the Year by Pictures of the Year International.

On 11 August 2009, while on assignment in Afghanistan, Morenatti was injured in a blast caused by a roadside bomb, losing his left foot. He is now back in action and based in Barcelona as the AP chief photographer for Spain and Portugal.

Frontline Memorial Tribute

LASANTHA WICKREMATUNGE

Lasantha Wickrematunge, born 1958, was a prominent journalist and commentator in Sri Lanka. As editor of The Sunday Leader, he was an outspoken critic of both the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers. His work was published widely around the world.

On the morning of 8 January 2009, Wickrematunge was assassinated near Colombo as he was driving to his office, shot in his car by unknown gunmen riding motorcycles. Due to frequent death threats in the months leading up to his killing, he was able to predict his death in an editorial which was published three days later.

Posthumously Wickrematunge was the recipient of many awards associated with press freedom, including the Guillermo Cano Prize, the Louis Lyons Award, the James Cameron Memorial Trust Award, and the John Aubuchon Press Freedom Award. In 2010 he was declared a World Press Freedom Hero of the International Press Institute.