(April 11, 2008) Businessman, philanthropist, and film producer Ted Leonsis and award-winning international journalist Mariane Pearl will be honored at the Internews Media Leadership Awards in Washington, DC June 5, 2008. Co-hosted by Kathy Bushkin Calvin, Executive Vice President and COO of The United Nations Foundation, and Pat Mitchell, President & CEO of The Paley Center for Media, the awards will also honor three outstanding media leaders from Kenya, Vietnam, and Ukraine.

Ted Leonsis is being honored for engaging global audiences through his socially conscious films, Nanking and Kicking It, his pioneering work to connect people worldwide through Internet technology, and his leadership as a committed philanthropist.

Mariane Pearl, international journalist and widow of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, will be honored for her dedication to international reporting and commitment to spreading a global message of hope, most recently through telling the stories of women making a difference around the world.

Ted Leonsis, Vice Chairman Emeritus of AOL, owner of the Washington Capitals National Hockey League team, and Chairman of Clearspring Technologies and Revolution Money, is a dedicated philanthropist and a film producer.

Leonsis produced Nanking, a documentary film inspired by the late Iris Chang’s book, The Rape of Nanking, about the Japanese invasion of Nanking, China, in the early days of World War II. Nanking made its world premiere at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival where it was awarded the Documentary Editing Award. The film, released in December 2007, also received the Humanitarian Award at the Hong Kong Film Festival and is the highest-grossing documentary to date in China.

In 2008, Leonsis followed Nanking with Kicking It, a documentary about the lives of homeless people who are changed forever through an international soccer competition, the Homeless World Cup. Kicking It debuted at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and will be distributed by ESPN.

Both films are examples of “filmanthropy,” a phrase coined by Leonsis to describe a new category of filmmaking that sheds light on important issues around the world, and activates discussion, as well as new volunteers and new funds, to benefit a social cause.

Leonsis is a committed philanthropist and is involved with numerous charities including Best Buddies, Hoop Dreams, See Forever Foundation, YouthAIDS and others through the work of the Leonsis Foundation.

Mariane Pearl has reported and produced documentaries on culture, science, immigration, and politics. In 2006, Pearl began traveling the globe for Glamour magazine to profile courageous women and show that hope is stronger than fear. During the first year of writing her monthly Global Diary column, Pearl met 12 brave, determined women who make the world a more just and harmonious place despite personal hardship, discouraging odds and even death threats. She authored the 2007 book, In Search of Hope: The Global Diaries of Mariane Pearl to introduce readers to these everyday heroes.

Pearl wrote the book, A Mighty Heart about the experience of her husband Daniel Pearl’s kidnapping and murder in Karachi, Pakistan in 2002 while reporting for the Wall Street Journal. The film A Mighty Heart, starring Angelina Jolie as Mariane Pearl, was released in theaters in 2007 to critical acclaim.

Pearl is Co-Founder of the Daniel Pearl Foundation, an organization formed by Daniel’s family and friends to further the ideals that inspired his life and work. The foundation's mission is to promote cross-cultural understanding through journalism, music, and innovative communications.

Internews is proud to honor three journalists who epitomize media leadership in their home countries: Tole Nyatta of Kenya, Hoang Quoc Dzung of Vietnam, and Natalia Ligacheva of Ukraine.

Tole Nyatta is a 29-year-old radio journalist currently heading Pamoja FM, a community radio station based in Nairobi’s Kibera slum. He doubles as the station manager and editor-in-chief. Pamoja FM transmits to an audience of about 1.2 million people. It was started by a few retired journalists, born and brought up in Kibera slum, who then turned the station over to Nyatta to run. “We took up the challenge, and in stride it has been very challenging because of the limitation of resources and facilities and lack of trained personnel,” says Nyatta. “We are however optimistic that things will someday in the near future change for the better.”

Pamoja FM has proved to be a reliable and impartial source of information, to the extent that other mainstream media houses turn to it for information on Kibera. In the recent past, Pamoja FM has been a source of information to local media houses like Nation TV and Kiss FM as well as regional and international media like the BBC, Al-Jazeera, and ITV.

Hoang Quoc Dzung is one of the founders and the executive deputy-president of the Vietnam Forum of Environmental Journalists (VFEJ), created October 1998. After previously serving as a foreign affairs reporter, he has specialized in environmental coverage for 13 years at the Tien Phong (Vanguard) Newspaper, one of Vietnam’s ten largest-circulation dailies. He also works as chief editor of Tien Phong’s Science Section, which covers science, technology, environment, and health issues.

In late 2007, Dzung led a team of VFEJ journalists who carried out a landmark investigative report uncovering illegal trade in monkeys in Indochina. Dzung has been involved in various activities to improve the capacity of Vietnam’s environmental journalism, including composing a handbook in Vietnamese on Environment Writing in a Time of Globalization, managing the monthly print bulletin Journalists & Environment, setting up a web site on environmental journalism, and running series of workshops, training courses, and fieldtrips within and outside Vietnam on environmental issues for working journalists in print, radio, and TV outlets nationwide since 1998.

Natalia Ligacheva is the editor of Telekritika, a Ukrainian web-based media watchdog (now also a radio program and printed magazine), launched in 2001 as Ligacheva’s response to censorship by her editors at the Ukrainian newspaper Den. Telekritika is an open forum for critical media analysis, where journalists, politicians, and the community can discuss pressing questions of ethics and reporting standards.

Ligacheva played a crucial role in Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, spearheading a journalists’ movement that publicly denounced censorship and political pressure and vowed to uphold professional principles. “Media issues may change, but our goals remain the same,” says Ligacheva. “We see our mission as strengthening professional journalism in Ukraine by stimulating politicians, authorities, media owners, and journalists to realize the important public role of the media as the ‘watchdog of democracy’.”

Recently Ligacheva was awarded the title of “Honored Journalist of Ukraine” by President Viktor Yushchenko for her tremendous personal contributions to the development of constitutional principles of the Ukrainian national state system, enduring and conscientious work, and high level of professionalism.

Last year, Internews Network presented the inaugural Internews Media Leadership Awards to Peter Jennings, posthumously, and others at a gala event in Washington, DC on May 3, World Press Freedom Day.

Internews is celebrating its 26th year of fostering independent media and access to information in 70 countries worldwide. The mission of Internews is to empower people worldwide with the news and information they need, the ability to connect, and the means to make their voices heard.

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