GroundTruth

VIENNA – Here in this fussy, formally dressed city of ballrooms and opera houses, you could tell right away who were the journalists in town for the International Press Institute convention. They were the scruffy ones with the slightly wrinkled suits and the well-worn shoes who felt a bit out of place amid all the opulence.

The 60^th IPI World Congress brought together some 500 journalists, editors and publishers from around the globe for a conference titled “Thinking the Unthinkable: Are We Losing the News? Media Freedom in the New Media Landscape.”

Candidly, sometimes conferences like this are less than worthwhile. But this one was different. Here there was a kinetic exchange of ideas from journalists from every corner of the world. They hailed from historic centers of global power like the BBC, to new centers of power such as Google and to the quieter efforts of noble teams like Radio Okapi, the small but very important radio station that is reporting on the issues that matter in the Congo. GlobalPost was proud to be among those invited and to share in the panel discussion on the future of media.

There were inspiring speeches. They were presented by the well-known such as the former Sunday Times editor Sir Harold Evans, who delivered a kind of journalistic call to arms that was as inspiring as the St. Crispin’s Day speech in Henry V. And they were delivered by the less well known, such as Joseph Guyler C. Delva, an investigative reporter from Haiti, who enlightened the conference on the need for a strong media to watch over his country as it struggles to emerge from the devastating earthquake.

It was also a time of solidarity for the journalists who are risking their lives around the world, and a time to recognize the many who’ve been murdered. IPI Director Alison Bethel McKenzie, a former colleague of mine from The Boston Globe, presented a grim report on 52 journalists who’ve been killed on the job so far this year.

“Journalists continue to systematically lose their lives to conflict, militants, paid thugs, governments, drug dealers, corrupt politicians, unscrupulous security officers and others,” she said.

In the end of the day, Vienna may be a bit rich for the journalist crowd. But there was no question that the dramatic elegance of Vienna’s historic City Hall seemed the right setting to honor true heroes of the craft of journalism on Monday, September 13. Up on stage were the likes of May Chidiac, the Lebanese TV journalist who lost her leg and her arm in a car bomb attack in retaliation for her aggressive reporting in Lebanon. There was Akbar Ganji, the Iranian journalist and dissident who has worked tirelessly defending freedom of speech in Iran and spent time in prison for his efforts. And there were the posthumous awards, such as the one accepted on behalf of Lasantha Wickrematunge, the brave editor of the Sri Lankan daily newspaper, The Sunday Leader, who was murdered in 2009. For the full list of World Press Freedom heroes awarded this year and the 60 who’ve been awarded in all, you can visit the IPI website.

So, first of all apologies for abandoning my post here for so long. Not cool. But these are incredibly busy — and good — days at GlobalPost. Lots going on. And every day we are busy editing the work of correspondents who are out there doing great reporting in the field and living up to the central premise of “groundtruth,” which is the simple fact of being there. And often those correspondents are putting themselves in harms way to deliver for us here in Boston and  we never want to forget that. So here I am rushing to finish the week and head out for a long, Memorial Day weekend and I realized I gotta stop for a minute of remembrance of my own. Yes, for all of those who’ve fallen defending the country for sure. But also for all of those journalists who’ve fallen in covering those wars, and for all those who are still out there still doing the work. We have a lot of great reporters all over the world who do work every day that is nothing short of heroic in bringing us the stories we need to know to understand what is happening on the ground. In the spirit of honoring that work , here is an email I just got from Ben Gilbert, our Lebanon correspondent, who is now on an embed in Afghanistan. Check it out:

Thanks and talk soon,

Ben

Rose Devine was the eyes and ears and the heart and soul of The Boston Globe. As the operator at the switchboard in the newsroom for more than 20 years, Rose knew GroundTruth and she loved it.

She loved everything about reporting –  the crackling sound of police radios and the breathless calls from reporters out hustling a big story somewhere in the city back in the day long before cell phones and texting. She listened to those who would call in to drop a dime on a corrupt politician, to complain about a story or to sing the praises of something they’d read. She knew names and kept phone numbers and always had an idea about how to pursue a story.

In my case, I was usually calling in to the switchboard from the Middle East. Rose would pick up the line when I was  calling in on a satphone from Iraq or Gaza with all hell breaking loose in the background and the connection going in and out. She would dispatch someone to go pull the editors out of a meeting or find them in the cafeteria. And she’d stay with me on the line, catching me up on all that was going on in the newsroom and she’d ask about what was going where I was and then like punctuation at the end of a sentence she’d ask me the same question every time:  “Hey, have you called your wife?”

She was always reminding those of us in the field about what’s important.

“When’s the last time you read a story to your kids?” she’d ask with an accent sharpened in her native South Boston.

Rose was the daughter of a an Irish cleaning woman, or “scrubby,” as they were known who mopped the floors of the Globe. Her father was a Longshoreman. Her parents were both immigrants from Ireland and Rose was fiercely proud of her ancestry and just as proud of her hometown of “Southie.” She loved to sing the old Irish songs and she knew every word to every one of them. She and her sister Barbara, who was also an operator at the Globe, were inseparable. She was  a loving mother and a doting grandmother. And she was the kind of friend who always had time to listen and offer a quick bit of advice whether you wanted it or not. Before I went overseas for the Globe, we’d share laughs and cigarettes in the small, windowless office of  columnist Mike Barnicle. They were good days when newspapers still had confidence and swagger and great characters and a great value for GroundTruth.

Here’s how Barnicle described Rose in the Globe obituary:

“She was absolutely the heart and soul of The Boston Globe. Rose knew everyone she looked out at, sitting in the newsroom. She knew something about their lives, she knew things about their families, a child’s illness, a daughter getting into college, a marriage breaking up. She also happened to be one of the finest reporters I’ve ever met. She had a sense of what news was, what stories people wanted to read, and what people would read.’’

Fittingly enough Rose’s wake was held on St. Patrick’s Day. A funeral Mass was held the day after.  And today she was laid to rest.  She was 73.

GlobalPost invites you to listen to “This Year with Global Post,” a special radio report in partnership with WGBH-Boston on how our correspondents have covered the big stories of 2009. I am hosting the radio show and will be talking with our correspondents around the world about the global economic crisis, the war in Afghanistan, climate change and the many challenges that lie ahead in 2010 and beyond. The show will air on the PBS flagship WGBH (89.7 FM) in Boston at noon on Thursday, Dec. 31. And will be rebroadcast on WGBH on Sunday at 8 p.m. It will also be available online through WGBH.org. You can also hear a podcast of the program.