There is hope for journalism.At least that is what I took away from the shining examples of the craft awarded prizes by the Kurt Schork Memorial fund this year.Since 2002 the Fund has been honouring journalists for accomplished reporting that is all the more to be admired because they have worked as freelancers, without the security of being employed by a large news organisation. The Fund also honours local journalists; their particular bravery lies in working in the knowledge they cannot flee a country’s persecution and harassment, as foreign journalists may, because it is their homeland.This year’s winners honour the tradition. Their work is awe-inspiring, in the most literal sense. Nir Rosen’s account of his travels with the Taliban in 2008 is audacious and perspicacious. U.S. President Barack Obama could get no more acute analysis of the policy dilemmas he faces over sending more troops to Afghanistan than by reading Nir’s piece.Manon Querouil’s stories, many published in French Marie Claire, are startling in their range and ambition. Her portrait of the female contract killer from Colombia, now dead, is stunning.From Pakistan, local journalist Maqbool Ahmed was recognised for his deeply-researched, brave and balanced accounts of the suffering of the civilians of the Swat valley as the military and the Taliban fought for its control.In the panel discussion that followed the prize-giving what emerged as the thread that united the  award-winners was the deep peril they faced in their work. The remarkable Nir Rosen had recently been chased out of Quetta in Pakistan, reputedly the home in exile of the leaders of the Afghan Taliban, with threats that he would face the same fate as Daniel Pearl.I reflected upon some of the qualities that made an award-winner in the short speech that I gave to introduce the ceremony.Here is the speech:”Welcome, Ladies and Gentlemen, to the 2009 Kurt Schork Awards in International Journalism.My name is Sean Maguire, and I am the political editor for Reuters.It is a great honour to welcome you here  -as a friend and colleague of Kurt’s – and as a firm believer in the values of intrepid, thoughtful journalism that Kurt espoused and which these awards honour and encourage.Kurt spent much of his journalistic career as a freelancer, on contract for Reuters. He was reporting for Reuters in Sierra Leone when he was killed, more than nine years ago.So I am particularly pleased that we are able to host this year’s awards here in the London headquarters of Thomson Reuters, the parent company of the Reuters news organisation.Kurt was not one for spending time at HQ, or in giving much deference to HQ and those who worked there, so perhaps it is fitting that it has taken a little while for HQ to be the venue for the awards in his honour.We are here thanks to the good offices of the ThomsonReuters Foundation, the charitable wing of the company, which does great work in training journalists in the developing world and in promoting the free flow of information in crisis situations.Many of you here knew Kurt as a friend, as I did, and worked with him. We’ve had some time now to ponder our loss and, as we have continued our professional lives, to contemplate what light continues to be shed on us by his bright flame.The inquisitiveness, the sense of outrage, the deep disquiet over injustice, inhumanity and the abuse of power are well-known facets of Kurt’s legacy.And from his body of work a deep, practical lesson can still be taken for those engaged in the craft of journalism – it is of the power of persistence. Stubborn doggedness, uncomfortable endurance and an awkward refusal to be diverted or distracted lay behind many of his best stories.And that’s what has struck me about the Schork award winners. So many of those honoured have been brave men and women who toiled relentlessly, wringing stories out of the unwilling and the hostile, refusing the temptations of easy headlines available to parachute journalism, staying the course and sticking to their guns.We see those qualities again in this year’s winners.And once again the awards focus on the major concerns of our time.Necessarily, the Kurt Schork awards have tracked the horrors and hostilities of the first decade of the 21st century. From Iraq, of course, to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Zimbabwe, but also from human rights issues in modern China to the abuse of power in Ghana and Liberia.This year the focus is clear. AfPak, the policy wonk euphemism for two interlinked, deadly and profoundly significant conflicts in South Asia, has been the subject of the work that won prizes for two of this year’s winners. And it is also the subject of our debate tonight.After the prize-giving our panellists will discuss –Pakistan, Afghanistan and beyond: Covering conflict in hostile states.Before we go on I want to thank the Institute for War and Peace Reporting for its fantastic organisation of these awards.And also to thank the jury, who make the choices that give the Kurt Schork award its stature and significance:David Rogers and Nick Moore, formerly of Reuters,Mark Danner of The New York Review of BooksAung Zaw of the Southeast Asia publishing group IrrawaddyIsabel Hilton of China DialogueJohn Burns of The New York TimesI last met John Burns on a bridge in Baghdad in April 2003, on the day when Saddam Hussein fell. He was a picture of professional engagement, studiously pencil noting the chaotic drama of the day. Today in more serene surroundings, thankfully, I’d like to welcome John, who will guide us through the prize giving.”

Last week I was told that Reuters has lost its ethical bearings. You’ve sacrificed the sacred tenet of accuracy by rushing to publish information without checking if it is true. Your credibility has suffered, the value of your brand will wither and the service you offer to clients has been devalued, I heard.It was a meaty accusation, especially as it came in the midst of a debate on ethics in journalism held at the London home of ThomsonReuters, the parent of the Reuters news organisation. The charge came from former Reuters journalists and a senior member of the trustees body that monitors Reuters compliance with its core ethical principles.So what specifically were we being accused of and what defence did I offer?On the 8th anniversary of the Sept 11th attacks, a day of more than normal sensitivity to security matters, CNN in the United States reported that the U.S. Coast Guard had fired on a boat in the Potomac River in Washington D.C. President Obama was visiting the nearby Pentagon at the time. Reuters rushed out a story on the reports of gunfire, citing CNN as the source for the information, while urgently checking with law enforcement officials. It transpired that CNN had been monitoring radio traffic on an unencrypted Marine frequency and had overheard a training exercise in which crew members shouted ‘bang bang’. Quickly we put out an update to our story making clear it was a false alarm.I had played a part in crafting our policy on handling such stories and from my place on the debate panel I offered another example for the audience to chew on.  On Oct. 21 Britain’s Sky News reported that the Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset al-Megrahi had died in Libya. We put out a story, sourced to Sky News and repeating how it said it had the information of the death, while checking with officials and al-Megrahi’s legal team in Scotland. We quickly established that Sky had it wrong and updated our story to say so.It is grating for any journalist to publish information that turns out to be incorrect. Even if we can say that the original error was made elsewhere some of the flak hits those who replicate the mistake. After all, those who republish a libel are as liable for it as its originator. So why did we not check first and publish later? The answer goes to the heart of how the news business has changed, how the notion of authoritativeness has altered and how Reuters journalists interpret the values they live by.But first let’s scotch one myth. Embarrassing publicity notwithstanding, it is relatively rare for Reuters to publish what turns out to be an erroneous report by another news organisation. Since we instituted our current policy on ‘pick-ups,’ as they are known in the trade, the level of ’echoed mistakes,’ has neither grown nor fallen.  To provide a complete service to our customers our policy is to pick up stories of significance that are being carried by normally reliable media that are in a position to know what they are reporting.   Hence the decision to quote CNN, which has a good record on reporting its own home turf, or Sky, which has broken news on the Lockerbie bomber story and follows it closely.  We protect our reputation by carefully acknowledging the source of the information and speedily checking its veracity. And hundreds of times every day Reuters journalists decline to go with a story running on local media because it ’smells’ wrong, is trivial, or both. Mostly that decision is vindicated. The old school would have it that our policy is a failure of journalism. Yet walking the right line between publishing everything and publishing nothing actually requires a finer exercise of judgment. Better journalism, in other words. The counter-argument is that we should only publish when we have 100 percent certainty from our own sources.  That may be possible for a news organisation with a longer publishing timescale, such as a newspaper, or a periodical magazine. Yet even they, with online arms that are increasingly as ‘real-time’ as Reuters, the Associated Press or Bloomberg, face the same challenges of dealing with fast-breaking stories as the news agencies.  With the advent of the Internet has come a cacophony of online voices that amplify and accelerate information, frequently dropping reference to where it originated or how it first became known. In that environment readers look to news services like Reuters to tell them what is known, and how it is known, with clarity and speed, regardless of whether we originated the story or not. In a complex, fast-moving world, no news organisation, no matter how well-resourced, can be first to report everything. All of us target the news we want to break and rely on others, who are sometimes allies and sometimes competitors, to paint their part of the picture.   Has our approach destroyed the relationship of trust that our clients and readers have with us?    The question supposes there was once a golden age of authoritative journalism where sourcing was always rigorous and the pursuit of truth always relentless. History suggests otherwise. Current anxiety over journalistic values is often a proxy for broader worry over the health of the media industry. Declining revenues have driven cost cutting that has threatened, many feel, the standards of journalism. Reuters is stressing speed for fear of losing its audience, critics say, and will do so at the expense of its reputation for accuracy.  Yet our business has always put a premium on speed, and given that we are one of very few global news organisations that is expanding its staff during the downturn we feel we are doing the right things to maintain our audience.The nature of authority in the news business has also changed. Real-time readers understand breaking news is contingent, uncertain and provisional. Exclusivity evaporates fast as aggregators, citers and plagiarists disseminate the fruits of others’ reporting toil. Respect is won by breaking news and by operating with clear rules and standards. But it also come from guiding readers carefully to the reports of others, binding the audience in with compelling packages of conversation, illumination and curated content.When the first plane hit the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001, Reuters did not put out a story instantly. We were so mesmerised by the unbelievability of the event, and so uncertain over how to handle what we saw on CNN, that we froze. How many readers were lost that day and how many on the day of the Potomac gun battle that never was?

On a hilltop in central Kabul, the relics of Soviet armoured vehicles sit in the shadow of an incongruously vast and empty swimming pool. A tower of diving boards looks down into the concrete carcass built by the Russians. Boys play football there and on Fridays the basin is used for dog fights; combat is the only option for the canine gladiators, as they cannot climb up the sheer, steep sides. From the vantage point you can see the city’s graveyards, its bright new mosques, the narco-palaces of drug-funded business potentates and the spread of modest brick homes where most Kabulis live. It’s a favourite spot for reporters when they need to escape the press of urgent events and get cleaner air in their lungs. 

For years journalists have sought to tell stories that go beyond the conflict in Afghanistan. We’ve tried to portray this country – the crossroads of central Asia, the summer home of Moghul emperors, the cockpit of clashing empires – as more than a place of blood, deprivation and extremism. Amid the dust and the heat it has its oases of tranquility, its laughter and its charms. From the market stalls of sweet pomengranates that line the road in autumn to the rose gardens newly planted in central Kabul, Afghanistan is a place of thorny history, cultural complexity and spartan beauty.Alas, we cannot ignore the warfare. Great journalistic energy has to go into counting the casualties, explaining the violence and charting the shifting strategies of the combatants. It’s a conflict whose outcome is uncertain. The bullets and bombs tear through the flesh of ordinary Afghans, fanatical insurgents and Western soldiers with equal awfulness. A blast takes the life of a child, deprives a wife of a husband and faintly furthers some cause. The impact is immediate and local, but it reverberates harshly in Washington, Delhi, London or Paris.Can we weave together the warp of war and the weft of daily life in Afghanistan? Yes, in this blog, we hope is the answer. In the tradition of the region’s richly patterned carpets, it will be both intricate and stoutly structured, minutely detailed and expansive in scale.It will gather the impressions, observations and thoughts of our correspondents, video journalists and photographers in Afghanistan, whether they be in Kabul, on embedded assignments with different military units or travelling independently. Infrequent visitors like myself, just returned from Kabul, will contribute. I went to assess the mood, interview officials and see how our large journalistic operation is run. The blog will link our teams in Washington, London, Brussels, Delhi and Islamabad, bringing to bear a unique array of perspectives on the Afghan story.It should be an intelligent, lively and useful addition to the words, images and video that Reuters already produces to illustrate this dynamic, significant and absorbing story. The blog won’t be complete without your views. Please contribute your comments and become part of the debate on the future of Afghanistan. Be partisan if you wish, but kindly remain pleasant.Welcome to ‘The Afghan Journal.’[Reuters pictures of diving boards at an empty Kabul swimming pool,a girl on a street and soldiers passing by another ]

NEW DELHI/BRUSSELS (Reuters) – India softened climate demands on Friday, helping bridge a rich-poor divide, but said a global deal may miss a December deadline by a few months.

In contrast, European Union states struggled to agree a common stance for financing a U.N. climate pact, meant to be agreed in Copenhagen at a December 7-18 meeting.

India wanted generous aid on advanced carbon-cutting technologies but dropped a core demand that industrialized countries cut greenhouse gases by 40 percent by 2020.

“If we say, let’s start with 25 percent, that’s a beginning. I’m not theological about this. It’s a negotiation. We have given a number of 40 but one has to be realistic,” environment minister Jairam Ramesh said in a Reuters interview.

NEW DELHI/BRUSSELS, Oct 16 (Reuters) – India softened climate demands on Friday, helping bridge a rich-poor divide, but said a global deal may miss a December deadline by a few months. In contrast, European Union states struggled to agree a common stance for financing a U.N. climate pact, meant to be agreed in Copenhagen at a Dec. 7-18 meeting. [ID:nLG415874] India wanted generous aid on advanced carbon-cutting technologies but dropped a core demand that industrialised countries cut greenhouse gases by 40 percent by 2020. "If we say, let’s start with 25 percent, that’s a beginning. I’m not theological about this. It’s a negotiation. We have given a number of 40 but one has to be realistic," environment minister Jairam Ramesh said in a Reuters interview. Ramesh said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, keen to overturn India’s image as obstructionist in multi-lateral negotiations, had mandated him to be flexible. [ID:nDEL313884] "I tell you my prime minister has told me two days ago, ‘don’t block, be constructive…make sure there’s an agreement.’ What more can I say?" Indian is now in line with the European Union, which has promised to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20-30 percent by 2020 below 1990 levels. U.S. President Barack Obama wants to return U.S. emissions to 1990 levels by then. India also now supported a British estimate that the developed world should pay about $100 billion annually by 2020 to help poorer nations cope with and slow climate change. Until now it has suggested that the developed world pay 1 percent of their national wealth — a far higher figure which some rich countries branded a fantasy. [ID:nLQ733066] But Europe struggled to find a common position on climate finance on Friday, as member states guard national treasuries with a robust economic recovery still not in sight. SILENT The EU was silent about stepping up climate aid to developing nations, after talk last month from its executive Commission of paying up to 15 billion euros ($22.4 billion) a year by 2020 to break the impasse between rich and poor. China and India say they cannot cut emissions and adapt to changing temperatures without help from industrialised nations, which grew rich by burning fossil fuels, emitting carbon. A draft EU report for finance ministers called the past figures "a useful estimate for overall public and private efforts" but pointed to the "uncertainty…of such numbers". And cracks emerged over EU plans for cuts in emissions. The 27-country bloc has pledged to cut its own emissions to 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, and to increase cuts to 30 percent if other rich regions take similar action. But Romania and Slovakia have proposed making the increase to 30 percent less of a foregone conclusion, documents obtained by Reuters show. Romania also questions proposals to cut emissions by up to 95 percent by 2050. In Nairobi, the United Nations on Friday urged a smarter approach to biofuels that could be part of a shift to renewable energies under a Copenhagen deal. [ID:nLG090737] "A more sophisticated debate is urgently needed," U.N. Environment Programme Executive Director Achim Steiner told reporters. Generating electricity at power stations using wood, straw, seed oils and other crop or waste material was "generally more energy efficient than converting crops to liquid fuels".

NEW DELHI, Oct 15 (Reuters) – India remains vulnerable to a Mumbai-style militant attack because neighbouring Pakistan is struggling to rein in the Islamist groups blamed for last year’s deadly assault, the Home Minister said on Thursday. As India prepares for the first anniversary of the Mumbai raids that killed 166 people and foreign intelligence reports warn of possible new plots, Palaniappan Chidambaram warned any new attack would be met with a "swift and decisive" response. Two plush hotels and a Jewish centre were among the targets attacked by 10 gunmen last November. India blamed Pakistani nationals and tensions rose between the two nuclear powers. "My assessment of the vulnerability is that it has remained the same since 26/11," Chidambaram said in a rare interview, referring to the raids on Nov. 26. "It has not diminished nor has it enhanced." With India spending millions on new security measures, from commando hubs in cities to navy patrols and better intelligence gathering, the minister added that India had learnt its lesson. "Our capacity to deal with it (the terrorist threat) has increased significantly." Preventing new attacks is key to regional stability. (For stories on Afghanistan & Pakistan, click [ID:nAFPAK]) Former finance minister Chidambaram was appointed to India’s top security post after criticism that the Congress party-led government failed to prevent the gunmen from rampaging for nearly three days through India’s financial hub. Commando units finally killed all but one of the attackers. Despite pressure for military action against Pakistan last November, the Indians responded with a diplomatic offensive. A second attack would severely test its self-restraint. "If there is another terror threat or a terror attack of the kind we saw in 26/11, India’s response will be swift and decisive," Chidambaram said. CAN PAKISTAN REALLY ACT? New Delhi has criticised Islamabad for not acting fully against the alleged masterminds of the Mumbai attacks. Indians see the hand of Pakistani intelligence and military, hostile to any rapprochement with old foe India, behind the raids. India wants Pakistan to jail Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, founder of the outlawed Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group blamed for the attacks, before it resumes a peace process broken off last year. In the last year Saeed has been arrested, freed and most recently put under virtual house arrest, after international pressure on the Islamabad government. "Even if they wish to take action against the masterminds of 26/11, they (the Pakistan government ) perhaps do not have the capacity to take action," Chidambaram said. "That incapacity could encourage some wild elements, some rogue elements, to become adventurous. "I’m sure they’re planning (more attacks), but to what extent there is overt state support I cannot say … my guess is that state support is not there to the degree it was there in 2008." Foreign intelligence reports led one senior Australian politician, Victorian state Premier John Brumby, to cancel an official trip to Mumbai. [ID:nDEL483613] In September, a television report in Israel said Jerusalem had "pinpoint" intelligence about Pakistani militants attacking India in the weeks ahead. Chidambaram played down the reports, repeating that risk levels remained the same. "There is nothing markedly different to what we gather every day," the minister said, referring to intelligence reports. On Thursday, militants launched a string of attacks in the Pakistani heartland of Punjab — which borders India — and in the troubled northwest, killing at least 31 people after a week of violence in which more than 100 people died. [ID:nSP538792] "What happened today is a matter of great concern," he said. Before Mumbai in 2008, India was hit by bombings in markets and mosques across many cities that left hundreds dead. Some were blamed on home-grown Islamist militants from India’s Muslim community, the world’s third biggest. "I worry about it every day. I think our intelligence is better. I think we’ve been able to prevent a large number of potential attacks, and maybe been lucky too." (Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

An atmosphere of stale defensiveness has sunk over Kabul. The mood has been lowered by the protracted saga of the Afghan election count, almost two months on from the first round August 20 vote. It’s a drama veering towards farce more often than post-modern play, as we wait endlessly for a result, that like Godot, does not want to come.Winter has not yet arrived in Kabul, though the evenings are cold, quickly taking the heat of the sun out of the day. Afghan politicians are frustrated and twitchy, second-guessing the reasons for the U.N.-backed election watchdog’s plodding. We are being solidly methodological to retain the confidence of all, says the Electoral Complaints Commission, as it examines thousands of dodgy votes. A thankless task, most likely. The ECC officials will be puzzling over whether a box of votes has been mass-endorsed for one candidate, and should not stand, or if the suspiciously similar ticks on the ballot paper are attributable to only one man in the village knowing how to write. Many of the rural voters will never have held a pen in their hand, argued one official. It is natural in such a tribal society for the village to establish a consensus on who to support. Do such ballot papers count? Remember Florida, and how ‘hanging chads’ and the U.S. Supreme Court gave George W. Bush the presidency over Al Gore? It’s that kind of agony.Behind the scenes the whispers are that hesitation and delay are because the outcome is excruciatingly close, too close to call. President Hamid Karzai, once set clear for victory, may find first round success ripped from his grasp by the disqualification of votes stuffed into ballot boxes by his supporters. He’ll likely win a second round, if it happens, against his former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah; but there will have been a loss of dignity, of self-confidence and of an opportunity to stabilise Afghanistan and get on with fighting the Taliban.Other more fraught scenarios are possible, as outlined by my colleague. Would Karzai gamble that the West has no alternative to him in Afghanistan? And that he can therefore afford to ignore the opprobrium that would follow if he rejected an outcome he did not like? Or are the suspicions of chicanery, back-room pressure on election officials and string-pulling by all involved just a proliferation of nonsense to fill the void left by the lack of a clear outcome?Eventually the result will be out, perhaps by the time some of you get round to reading this. Most likely I will be back in London, watching from afar. Optimists would have it that clarity will clear the air, the Afghan political mood will lighten and spoils to all will come from the haggling over the shape of the next government.Meanwhile Afghanistan is Limbo-stan. Obama won’t decide his strategy on Afghanistan until he sees what kind of Afghan partner he has to deal with. At least until then, and possibly longer, he won’t say yes or no to the extra troops that General Stanley McChrystal says he needs to carry out the counter-insurgency strategy that he has prepared. (Though he’ll carry out a different strategy, with no or fewer extra troops, if that’s what he’s ordered to do by his commander-in-chief). So in this limbo – the Washington policy void is filled with echo-chamber exhortations across the political divides; the Taliban is emboldened; Afghanistan’s neighbours are positioning themselves to benefit or at least guard against strategic loss should Washington fold its tent; and Western publics are wondering if there is a real purpose to their boys getting their limbs blown off while trudging through the fields of southern Helmand.