“An award for one of our own.”In the name of a correspondent who paid the highest price.
8 FEBRUARY—Recognition does not grow so plentifully at our end of the garden. This is simply the way it is in the media terrain of the Western post-democracies. Independent media are the future of the profession, as we have argued in these pages on numerous occasions, but there is a lot to do yet before independent publications such as ours reach readers and viewers in the numbers you find among corporate media. And so, when recognition for the work comes, and when encouragement comes with it—these are received as gifts here at The Floutist. We have had one this past week, and I want to share it with you. Patrick Lawrence, our cofounder, publisher, editor, and frequent writer, is the recipient of this year’s Serena Shim Award. The name in full will tell you why he is so highly honored to receive this prize: It is the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism. What better accolade can come a professional’s way? Lawrence joins some honored names, some belonging to old and recent friends. The late John Pilger, Julian Assange, Gareth Porter, Sharmine Narwani, Eva Bartlett, Kit Klarenberg, Alan MacLeod, Asa Winstanley, Ben Norton, the dedicated people at Antiwar.com: The list goes on at some length. The laureate who immediately preceded Lawrence was Jacques Baud, the highly respected Swiss commentator, whose recent sanctioning by the European Union, a beyond-belief disgrace, we covered in “Free speech and its enemies” at the end of last year. One of the award committee’s intentions—reflecting an excellent understanding of what is needed, we think—is to bring independent professionals together to make a vibrant community of themselves, in part by encouraging each laureate to nominate future candidates for the award. Lawrence looks forward to joining all the other laureates in this way. Here is part of what Lawrence wrote to the Award Committee on learning of his prize last week:
And so a few words about Serena Shim, that exemplary, courageous journalist, and her work. Shim was a Lebanese–American correspondent working for Press TV, the Iranian broadcast network, who was killed at the age of 29. This was in October 2014, by which time the C.I.A.–sponsored covert operation against the Assad government was up and running. Shim was at the Turkish–Syrian border, which was very porous at the time, and was reporting on well-armed militants going by “the Free Syrian Army”—a blind for Islamic State jihadists, of course—crossing the border from Turkey into Syria in trucks marked with the names of N.G.O.s, the World Food Programme among them. After Shim filed what would turn out to be her final piece to Press TV, Turkish intelligence accused her of espionage and threatened her with arrest. Two days after Shim advised her editors she was “a bit frightened,” she was killed in a highway accident that appears to have been arranged by the Turkish authorities. “Appears”: Very certainly this was murder, but there has never been a formal investigation; while Shim was American, the State Department refused to touch the case. But Press TV’s editors went straight to the point as the circumstances of Shim’s death became clear: “Our sister Serena has been assassinated by the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.” I invite readers to join us as we celebrate the Serena Shim Award Committee’s recognition of Lawrence’s work. I share his gratitude for their vote in favor of its worth. —C. M. On this occasion we are especially grateful to our loyal readers and supporters. You're currently a free subscriber to The Floutist. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription. © 2026 Patrick Lawrence |