Jeremy Scahill of The Nation has won the second annual Izzy Award, an honor named after the muckraking journalist I.F. Stone and awarded to journalists who are recognized for "special achievement in independent media" outside of traditional, corporate news structures. Last year's winners were Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com and Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!
If you've never heard of Scahill, join me over the fold for some information on why his work has been so valuable. I invite others to join me in giving him congratulations.
Scahill is the author of the 2007 book Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army. The book follows the growth of Blackwater, and the empowerment by the U.S. government of private military contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan during the past several years. It describes the corrupt nature by which Blackwater was given carte blanche by U.S. officials to commit crimes against Iraqi civilians. Here's an excerpt, from page 16:
The dirty open secret in Washington was that Blackwater had done its job in Iraq: to keep the most hated U.S. occupation officials alive by any means necessary. "What they told me was, 'Our mission is to protect the principal at all costs. If that means pissing off the Iraqis, too bad,'" recalled former U.S. occupation adviser Ann Exline Starr, who was protected in Iraq by both Blackwater and DynCorp. This "mission" encouraged conduct that placed U.S. lives at an infinitely higher premium than those of Iraqi civilians, even in cases where the only Iraqi crime was driving too close to a VIP convoy protected by Blackwater guards.
Scahill was also the journalist who broke the story about how the founder of Blackwater, Erik Prince, was implicated in a murder case in which former Blackwater employees alleged that Prince smuggled illegal weapons into Iraq, destroyed incriminating documents and evidence, and killed individuals who were cooperating with a criminal investigation of the company. He also detailed how these employees described Prince as a right-wing religious zealot whose goals were to implement a Christian crusade in Iraq.
The two men claim that the company's owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," and that Prince's companies "encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life."
.....
These allegations, and a series of other charges, are contained in sworn affidavits, given under penalty of perjury, filed late at night on August 3 in the Eastern District of Virginia as part of a seventy-page motion by lawyers for Iraqi civilians suing Blackwater for alleged war crimes and other misconduct.
Yesterday, Scahill was interviewed by AlterNet's Byard Duncan about winning the Izzy Award, the role of independent journalists, and the challenges they face in a society in which newspapers and magazines are rapidly shrinking. Scahill was also quite critical of the Obama Administration's position on civil liberties, surveillance, prisoner rights, and transparency. I encourage everybody to read the complete interview at the link above, but here's an excerpt that I think exemplifies why independent media is so important in our political culture:
When my book first came out, I thought I was going to be running around the country selling it out of my backpack, which was fine with me.
What I've learned from doing this story is that if you go around the country, if you keep at it, if you beat the drum, if your facts are all in order, and you just keep going, you can have an impact. But you can't give up.
We live in a very exciting time in independent media. Corporate journalists are less powerful now than they were 10 years ago, but their owners are much more powerful. Still, the journalists themselves -- they're no longer these sort of regal kings on a hill. Peggy Noonan represents a dying generation of people that pontificate from a golden palace somewhere, hoping the poor will never get through her gates.
I think the Izzy Award could not have been awarded to a more deserving recipient. His work in bringing Blackwater's activities to light has helped illuminate the serious problems with our government's policies in fighting the War on Terror, and his courageous efforts to expose Blackwater's conduct in Iraq and Afghanistan have helped force traditional media outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post to cover these stories with greater intensity and rigor.
Scahill will be accepting the Izzy Award at Ithaca College in New York on Monday, April 19.