GUEST SPEAKER: SEYMOUR HERSH

Seymour M. Hersh first wrote for The New Yorker in 1971 and has been a regular contributor to the magazine since 1993. His journalism and publishing prizes include the Pulitzer Prize, five George Polk Awards, the National Magazine Award, and more than a dozen other prizes (Sigma Delta Chi, Worth Bingham, Sidney Hillman, etc.) for investigative reporting on My Lai, the C.I.A.'s bombing of Cambodia, Henry Kissinger's wiretapping, and the C.I.A.'s efforts against Chile's Salvador Allende, among other topics. In 2004, Hersh was responsible for exposing the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in a series of pieces in the magazine; early in 2005, he was awarded the National Press Foundation's W.M. Kiplinger Distinguished Contributions to Journalism award and received his fifth George W. Polk award, making him that award's most honored laureate.

Hersh was born in Chicago, in 1937, and graduated in 1958 from the University of Chicago. He began his newspaper career as a police reporter for the City News Bureau of Chicago. He served in the Army and worked for a suburban newspaper and then for UPI and AP until late 1967, when he joined the Presidential campaign of Eugene J. McCarthy as speech writer and press secretary. Hersh joined the New York Times in 1972, working in Washington and New York. He left the paper in 1979 and has been a freelance writer since, with two six-month returns on special assignment to the Times' Washington bureau.

Hersh has published eight books, most recently "Chain of Command," which was based on his reporting for The New Yorker on Abu Ghraib. His book prizes include the 1983 National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times award for biography, and a second Sidney Hillman award, for "The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House." Hersh has also won two Investigative Reporters & Editors prizes, for the Kissinger book, in 1983, and in 1992 for a study of American foreign policy and the Israeli nuclear bomb program, "The Samson Option." In 2004, Hersh won a National Magazine Award for public interest for his three pieces, "Lunch with the Chairman," "Selective Intelligence," and "The Stovepipe."

Seymour Hersh is married, with three children, and lives in Washington, D.C.

3/9/05 from The New Yorker

Past Guest Speakers
Past Speakers at the International Press Freedom Awards have included many well-known public and political figures.
Here are excerpts from some their speeches.

2004 - John C. Polanyi
2002 - The Honourable Bill Graham
2001 - Her Excellency, The Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson
2000 - Micheal Ignatieff

MEDIA HOSTS

The International Press Freedom Awards are Canada's premier social event for journalists, media, business, government, and those who care about freedom of expression.

We are continuing to update this page with this year's media hosts. Please check back.

2005 Media Hosts
Andy Barrie CBC Radio	Wendy Mesley CBC Television	Joe Schlesinger CBC Television
Paul Knox Chair of the School of Journalism at Ryerson University and former columnist, The Globe and Mail	Sally Armstrong Journalist/Author	Lawrence Martin The Globe and Mail
John Stackhouse The Globe and Mail	Anna Maria Tremonti CBC Radio	Nikahang Kowsar Political Cartoonist
Jan Wong The Globe and Mail	Sandra Martin The Globe and Mail	Patrick Martin The Globe and Mail
Antonia Zerbisias The Toronto Star	Juliet O'Neill Ottawa Citizen	Richard Gwyn The Toronto Star
Rick Salutin The Globe and Mail	Bob McDonald CBC Radio	Andrew Coyne The National Post
Theresa Tedesco The National Post	Don Newman CBC Television	Hugh Winsor Ottawa Bureau The Globe and Mail
John Valorzi The Canadian Press	Brian Stewart CBC Television