The New York Times Wins Four Awards at the 72nd Annual Overseas Press Club Awards; OPC Honors Former Winners Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros Posthumously; New York Times Editor Bill Keller Receives the OPC President's Award

NEW YORK, April 28, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- In a year where the most compelling coverage came from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Mexico, The New York Times led all news organizations capturing four Overseas Press Club awards at the 72nd Annual OPC Awards Dinner, honoring the finest international journalism in 2010.  CBS News, ProPublica and National Geographic each won two awards.

The awards will be presented on April 28 by NBC News anchor Lester Holt at a dinner in New York where two former OPC winners – war photographers Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros – will be honored posthumously after they were killed covering the conflict in Misrata, Libya. Hetherington, who co-directed the Oscar-nominated documentary film "Restrepo," was originally scheduled to attend the OPC dinner as an awards presenter.

Journalist Mona Eltahawy will light the Press Freedom Candle in memory of the 44 journalists who were killed in 2010.

The four Times' winners include: the team of Clifford J. Levy and Ellen Barry who won for best newspaper interpretation of international affairs with their series about the injustices of the Russian legal system, which also earned them the Pulitzer Prize; photographer Agnes Dherbeys won the Robert Capa Gold Medal for photo reporting requiring exceptional courage for her images of the government riots in Thailand; the staff of NYTimes.com won for best coverage of breaking news for its Haitian earthquake reporting, and Adam B. Ellick earned the Time's fourth honor in the best use of video category for a riveting look inside the everyday lives of Pakistanis.

"The 25 OPC awards traditionally salute the courage and creativity of foreign journalists and photographers," says OPC President David A. Andelman.  "Their important work keeps us all enlightened and free."

In 2010, the war in Afghanistan, narcotrafficking in Mexico and various events in Pakistan accounted for three awards apiece.  Two winning entries each came from Russia, India, China and Haiti. Others were from Thailand, Guatemala, Israel, Palestine, Iraq and Kenya.

The CBS News program "60 Minutes" earned two awards. Lesley Stahl's two-part series won best TV documentary on international affairs for the Middle East conflicts in Israel-Palestine and Iraq. Correspondent Scott Pelley won for best reporting involving human rights for a 60 Minutes segment about a canal on the U.S.-Mexican border that has claimed the lives of 550 illegal immigrants.

National Geographic's multiple winners include photographer Lynsey Addario for best photo reporting from abroad. She fought hard for access to deliver a comprehensive and intimate portrayal of Afghan women. Writers Alma Guillermoprieto and Shaul Schwartz earned the best magazine reporting honor for their fresh and vital work on life inside Mexican prisons and shrines.

ProPublica's two honors include Sebastian Rotella for best investigation into a news event. He discovered that Pakistan's intelligence service collaborated with the terrorists in the 2008 Mumbai attacks while the U.S. had been slow to recognize the threat. The team of Dafna Linzer, Chisun Lee and Krista Kjellman-Schmidt won for international coverage on a website for their story about the ongoing tension of trying to shutdown the Guantanamo Bay prison.

The Washington Post team of Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Joshua Partlow combined to win the coveted Hal Boyle Award for best newspaper or news service reporting from abroad. Their series chronicled the many dimensions of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. The judging panel said, "In this rich body of work, Chandrasekaran and Partlow captured the tragedy of Afghanistan's war."

The OPC introduced six new awards this year for online journalism in the largest expansion of the program since it was established 72 years ago.

"We're recognizing the growing importance of online journalism," says Andelman, who is also editor of the World Policy Journal.  "American foreign correspondents today have an unparalleled ability to influence the global agenda—their stories find their way to the most remote villages and distant world capitals."

Andelman will present Keller, the executive editor of The New York Times, with the OPC President's Award for distinguished service in the field of journalism. Keller is a former Times foreign correspondent in Moscow and Johannesburg. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for his coverage of the Soviet Union and the Armenian earthquake.

"Bill's imagination, courage and determination in the face of challenges to the daily newspaper and its global coverage remain the standard for leadership in our profession," says Andelman.

The OPC Awards were founded in 1940 to recognize excellence for foreign coverage in the categories of print, broadcast and photography. There were 474 entries in this year's competition.

The winners include:

SOURCE Overseas Press Club of America