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By John Castellucci, Providence Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — When Christian Science Monitor reporter Jill Carroll was kidnapped in Iraq by Sunni Muslim insurgents, David Clark Scott worked tirelessly with other journalists to secure her freedom.
David Clark Scott (left) with Kate Bramson and Dorie Griggs (right) of the Dart Society. (Photo by Bob Thayer / Providence Journal) |
Last night, Scott, the Monitor’s international editor, stepped out from behind the scenes to receive the first-ever Mimi Award, a prize that recognizes outstanding work by a news editor.
It was an awkward moment for a man who usually shuns the limelight.
Editors are “kind of like the pit crew for NASCAR drivers,” Scott said at an award ceremony packed with colleagues from the Christian Science Monitor and employees of The Providence Journal, where Mimi Burkhardt, who died unexpectedly in 2004, worked as an editor.
They send the drivers out into danger, and when the race is won, Scott said, it’s the drivers — not the pit crew members — who get kissed by the pretty girl.
Last night it was Scott’s turn to get kissed. “I’m sorry I can’t be there tonight to watch Dave finally get the recognition he deserves,” Carroll said in an e-mail from Cairo, where she was posted after writing an 11-part series about her kidnapping.
“Editing is a thankless job of making others look good.”
That the job of journalists has become dangerous was underlined by Joel Rawson, the Journal’s executive editor.
The war in Iraq has claimed the lives of 137 journalists, Rawson said — “more of us than any of the wars in the 20th century.”
Among the 137 dead are 115 Iraqis, “men and women who died trying to tell the world about the catastrophe in their country,” he said.
From left: Bramson, Scott and Frank Ochberg — with a photo of Mimi Burkhardt on the projection screen. (Photo by Bob Thayer / Providence Journal) |
Scott’s award came from the Dart Society, a nonprofit society of journalists dedicated to promoting sensitive coverage of victims of violence and providing support for journalists who are affected by their work. The Dart Society is closely affiliated with the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, an organization that tries to strike a balance between the journalists’ job of reporting acts of violence and the victims’ need for compassion and sensitivity.
Significantly, the award was named for an editor who was often torn between the demands of journalism and the desire to be compassionate to people who have suffered harm.
“Mimi’s passions sometimes were in conflict with her sensitivities,” her husband, former Providence Journal editor Andy Burkhardt, said in a slide show that preceded the award presentation.
She wrestled, he said, over how to show compassion to victims of violence and at the same time get their stories into print.
When Kate Bramson, the Providence Journal staff writer who wrote an award-winning story about the rape of a girl in Burrillville, told her colleagues at the Dart Society about the sensitivity and skill Burkhardt showed in editing the story, Dr. Frank Ochberg, chairman emeritus of the Dart Center, proposed creating the award Scott received last night and calling it “the Mimi.”
Ochberg was on hand in the Journal auditorium to present the award to Scott, who was nominated for the Mimi by Carroll and other journalists at the Monitor.
“I’ve met journalists all over the world and few of them say good things about their editors,” Ochberg said, before handing Scott the award, a big framed picture of him being hugged by Carroll after she was freed by her captors.
“It’s not coming from the top. It’s coming from below and it’s being given to you, David Scott.”
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