Tel: (202) 619-2538
Fax: (202) 619-1241
E-mail: pubaff@ibb.gov

Panelists include Karen DeYoung, Associate Editor and former Foreign Affairs Correspondent for The Washington Post.  DeYoung received the Maria Moors Cabot Award for promoting inter-American understanding, the Sigma Delta Chi Distinguished Service Award for foreign reporting on the Nicaraguan revolution and the Salvadoran war.   She is an award-winning reporter who has distinguished herself for ground-breaking reporting on events all over Central America.

Al Pessin is Acting Chief of VOA's English Programs Division.  His award-winning coverage of the student-led democracy movement led to his expulsion from China following the Tiananmen Square massacre.  In addition to Beijing, his overseas assignments include serving in Hong Kong, Islamabad, and Jerusalem.

Idrissa Fall, correspondent for VOA's  French to Africa Service, provided extensive on-the-scene reporting throughout the Rwandan crisis.  He  interviewed presidents and heads of states, as well as villages affected by the aftermath of war.  His award-winning coverage in Central Africa has reflected the challenges surrounding reporting on humanitarian issues.

Joan Mower is the International Program Director for Africa and Latin America at The Freedom Forum.  She has worked as a journalist for the Associated Press and United Press International.  She has covered the Department of State, White House, and Capitol Hill, specializing in foreign policy.

The panel discussion will be followed by the presentation of the Cowan Award,  a privately endowed award presented annually to a VOA broadcaster for distinguished reporting on humanitarian issues.  The finalist judges for the Cowan Award were Karen DeYoung, Linda Douglass, Senior Congressional Correspondent, ABC News; Jeffrey Dvorkin, Ombudsman, National Public Radio, and C. Payne Lucas, President of Africare.

The Cowan Award was established in honor of Louis Cowan and Geoffrey Cowan, the second and twenty-second Directors of the Voice of America respectively.  The late Louis Cowan served as VOA Director from 1943 to 1945, and his son, Geoffrey Cowan, served from 1994 to 1996. He is now the Dean of the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Southern California.

Media representatives are invited to the panel discussion beginning at 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday, September 20 followed by the award ceremony and reception.  All events take place at the Voice of America, 330 Independence Avenue, S.W., Washington, D.C.  (PLEASE USE C STREET ENTRANCE)

Contact: Janice Davis-Roane
Phone: 202-619-2538