CHURCH WORLD SERVICE'S CHRIS HERLINGER AWARDED FOR JOURNALISTIC EXCELLENCE
NEW YORK - MAY 30 - Church World Service (CWS) Communications Officer and freelance journalist Chris Herlinger received the Egan Award for Journalist ic Excellence last week (May 25) at the Catholic Press Convocation in Nashville.
The award, given by Catholic Relief Services (CRS), recognizes journalists for their dedication to reporting on humanitarian and social justice issues around the world.
Herlinger's submission, "Darfur: Fear and Chaos in a Fragile Land," won in its category of publications with a national circulation. The piece focuses on the conflict in Darfur between the government, the citizens and rebel militias and was published in April of 2005 in National Catholic Reporter, an independent newsweekly based in Kansas City, Mo.
The articles stemmed from an assignment Herlinger took in Darfur in late 2004 on behalf of Church World Service, Lutheran World Relief and other U.S. and European relief agencies, both Protestant and Catholic. In Darfur, CWS supports work by the Action by Churches (ACT) International network and Caritas International.
Herlinger's work was part of a joint assignment with Danish photographer and writer Niles Carstensen.
Besides Sudan, Herlinger has covered emergencies in Kosovo (1999), El Salvador (2001), Afghanistan (2001 and 2002), Pakistan (2001 and 2006), Liberia (2003), Dominican Republic (2004), Iran and Iraq (2004) and Indonesia (2005) for humanitarian agency Church World Service and for other members of the Action by Churches (ACT) International network.
In addition to his reporting from Sudan, National Catholic Reporter has also published Herlinger's freelance reporting from Afghanistan, Liberia and Indonesia. Other reporting from his humanitarian assignments has appeared in The Christian Century and the Harvard Divinity Bulletin and for Ecumenical News International, a Geneva-based news agency.
Herlinger, 46, wrote the award-winning series while a resident fellow at Harvard Divinity School in early 2005. A graduate of Macalester College, Herlinger holds a Master of Arts degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York City, where he studied as a Bush Foundation Leadership Fellow, and is currently a candidate in a master of studies program in internationa l relations at Cambridge University in England.
"The award represents a 'full circle,'" says Donna J. Derr, director of Emergency Response for Church World Service. "Chris' assignment - for a consortium of Protestant and Catholic aid agencies - was symbolic of the way humanitarian agencies in Sudan and elsewhere work across denominational lines. So, it is fitting that a Protestant writer reporting on Darfur and working for Church World Service should receive an award from a Catholic aid agency."
The award stands in honor of Eileen Egan, Catholic Relief Services' first professional lay employee who devoted four decades of her life to assist refugees and development projects in Europe, Asia and Latin America. Ms. Egan died in October 2000 at the age of 88.
Other honorees include: Deacon Greg LaFreniere, The Long Island Catholic; Paul Jeffrey, Catholic News Service; Sara Lepro, Catholic Universe Bulletin; and Marylynn Hewitt, The Michigan Catholic. The work of Jeffrey, a United Methodist writer and photographer, has also appeared in a number of CWS publications.
Catholic Relief Services is the official international humanitarian agency of the U.S. Catholic community. For more information on the winners of the Eileen Egan Journalism Award or to read excerpts from their articles, visit Catholic Relief Services at www.crs.org.
New York-based Church World Service is the humanitarian relief agency of 35 Protestant, Orthodox, and Anglican denominations in the United States, with 60 years of experience in disaster response. www.churchworldservide.or g
Media Contacts
Lesley Crosson, (212) 870-2676, lcrosson@churchworldservice.org Jan Dragin - 24/7 - (781) 925-1526, jdragin@gis.net
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