CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – Nieman Fellows at Harvard University have selected Mohammed “Mo” Nabbous, founder of Libya Alhurra TV, as this year’s recipient of the Louis M. Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism. Nabbous, who was killed in March, was chosen as a representative of all those who courageously worked to disseminate news during the Arab Spring. In doing so, they helped further the cause of a free press.
In their citation, the Nieman Fellows stated: “Mohammed ‘Mo’ Nabbous and others like him, at great personal risk, helped report the facts and spread the news of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings.”
An Internet technology specialist, Nabbous founded and ran the Internet division of Libya Alhurra TV, a widely viewed live video channel, and transmitted the first images and sounds of the civil unrest in Libya to the outside world in February 2011. Using his technical and social media expertise, he was able to bypass government blocks on the Internet and, via satellite, streamed live raw footage and commentary from cameras set up around the city of Benghazi in the critical few days before any independent media were present.
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http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/newsitem.aspx?id=100182