Pulitzer Center Untold Stories

Carteret Islands Project Featured in New York Times

Kelly Mallahan, Pulitzer Center

Pulitzer-funded documentary filmmaker Jennifer Redfearn was quoted and her photography was featured in today's New York Times piece on the Carteret Islands.  Readfearn's documentary, "Sun Come Up", follows the relocation of some of the world’s first climate change refugees – the Carteret Islanders, a matrilineal community living on an island chain, 50 miles off the coast of Papua New Guinea.

"The Next Wave," a short version of "Sun Come Up," is one of two Pulitzer-funded documentaries that will be featured at the Ninth Annual Media That Matters Film Festival on June 3 in New York City.  "Bolivia's Coca Culture" by Gabrielle Weiss will also be shown.  Twelve total documentaries were selected from nearly 500 submissions to the festival.

Learn more about the Carteret Islands reporting project

Learn more about the coca policy in Bolivia reporting project

Where webcam meets storytelling: Pulitzer Center and iWitness

Alex Amend, Pulitzer Center

The Pulitzer Center is proud to announce a new partnership with the award-winning interview series iWitness - from Frontline/World - where newsmakers and journalists connect from around the world on webcam (using Skype). Launched just last year, iWitness is the recipient of two 2009 Webby Awards: one for best news and politics series on the web and one as a People's Voice award winner.

The Pulitzer Center, also a People's Voice award winner at the 2009 Webby Awards, will make available for interview Pulitzer Center journalists in the field and in the midst of their reporting. This partnership will enable both organizations to expand our reach providing the best in-depth international reporting of important and often underreported issues.

Secrets and doubts

Mary Wiltenburg, for the Pulitzer Center

 

Neema John walks a pathway between buildings in the Kigogo neighborhood where she lives in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. (Mary Wiltenburg © Christian Science Monitor)

Everybody lies. As a reporter, you know this at the outset of every story, every interview: We all lie in little ways, to protect ourselves. Not about important stuff, usually. But much of what I think about in any interview is how truthful a person is being – and if they’re not, why not, and to what end.

This week with Neema, I’ve been worried. Keep reading in The Christian Science Monitor >>>

Learn more about this reporting project>>

Coalition Press Releases on Documented Civilian Casualties

Jason Motlagh, for the Pulitzer Center

Whether by force, by chance, or mistaken choice, there are sundry ways Afghans find themselves in harm's way. Some deaths make the news, but many more -- particularly in Taliban strongholds -- go to the ground unreported, known only to those closest to the victims, should they be survived.

Herewith, a sampling of coalition press releases on documented civilian casualties over the course of one month in the war:

One Afghan killed, one wounded in convoy incident



KABUL, Afghanistan (May 26) - One Afghan was killed and another wounded when their vehicle appeared to threaten a coalition convoy.

The coalition convoy warned the Afghans to slow down and move their vehicle away from the convoy by discharging a flare. The vehicle slowed and moved away, but then approached the convoy in a manner that again appeared threatening.



Personnel in the convoy discharged two more flares to warn the vehicle, and then fired one warning shot from a small arms rifle. After the vehicle continued to pose an apparent threat, the convoy fired two more shots, killing one Afghan and wounding another. The wounded Afghan is being treated in a local hospital.

The coalition regrets the incident and loss of Afghan life, and has ordered an investigation


Latvia: Small Farmers Weather the Economic Storm, Large Farmers Hit Hard

Kristina Rizga, for the Pulitzer Center

Images by Akim Aginsky, for the Pulitzer Center

This blog entry was reprinted at World Focus and The Huffington Post

Sixty-year-old farmer Marite Martuzane wakes up every morning at 4:30 and rarely goes to sleep before midnight. Unlike most sectors of the Latvian economy that have slowed dramatically, many small farms that sell directly to their clients have more work than they can handle.

"We are somehow doing better in the economic crisis," Martuzane explains with a broad, warm smile, as she gives us a tour of her small farm in Adazi, a rural town about 30 minutes away from the capital city of Riga. "People buy more at farmer's markets now to save money."

Afghanistan: An Everyday Victim

By Jason Motlagh, for the Pulitzer Center

There are large-scale civilian deaths that make headlines; and then there are small but regular incidents in Afghanistan that may or may not get a mention. This was the fate of 12-year-old Benafsha Shaheem.

Afghanistan: Echoes of Azizabad

By Jason Motlagh, for the Pulitzer Center

The US military said yesterday that only 20-35 civilians were killed in airstrikes in western Afghanistan earlier this month, disputing the claims of the Afghan government and independent investigators.

Afghan officials maintain that 140 civilians died in the US bombardment of three villages in Farah province’s Bala Boluk district, which, if true, would amount to the single deadliest attack on civilians since the US-led invasion that ousted the Taliban in 2001.

Altar, Sonora

David Rochkind, for the Pulitzer Center

Hector Juarez, and his older brother Alfredo, were two of only a handful of migrants in an otherwise packed mass at the Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Altar’s central plaza. I had expected the church service would be full of migrants, especially since a prayer is recited specifically asking god to protect all those who make the dangerous journey to the United States.  A nun at the church later explained that there are never many migrants at Sunday mass.  It isn’t that they are less religious, but rather that they prefer to pray when the church is empty; they are often embarrassed to be dressed in worn, dirty clothes while surrounded by the freshly cleaned, pressed and coifed church members.  Nevertheless, there were Hector and Alfredo, sitting in a pew at the back of the church, spending their time with God as they decided if they should go home or trek north through the desert one more time.      

China: Final Thoughts from the Desertification Train

Sean Gallagher, for the Pulitzer Center

A lone farmer rides his tractor through a small rural village.

Winding my way along China's network of rail lines through the northern provinces of Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Gansu and Xinjiang, I have travelled over 4000 kilometers over the past 6 weeks, witnessing first hand the severity of desertification in China, just from my carriage window. The route I have followed, although made up of a number of trains, has been dubbed China's 'desertification train', as it snakes through some of the hardest hit land, suffering as a result of this increasingly severe phenomenon.

While the Tap is On (Video from Delhi)

Anna-Katarina Gravgaar, for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting

A couple of days ago we got a powerful glimpse of the psychology of water. Jyoti Sharma, President of the water related ngo FORCE invited me to witness the situation in and around the C sector in Vasant Kunj, South Delhi. Here, everyone stocks up on water. But whereas the slum dwellers only manage to fill their buckets and small containers from a public water tanker with little more than the 20 liters a human needs per day, the rich acquire thousands of liters during the one hour of running water the Government provides for them -just in case there will be no water tomorrow.

Download While the Tap is On

Learn more about this project at South Asia's Troubled Waters

And join the conversation by sharing your story about water here.