PCIJ Fellow Carol Arguillas
is 2011 McLuhan Fellow

CAROLYN O. Arguillas, a Fellow of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) and the editor of the Mindanao news cooperative MindaNews, was awarded on Thursday the Marshall McLuhan Prize for excellence in journalism.

Arguillas is a frequent contributor of Mindanao-based stories to the PCIJ. Just last month, she was named “Investigative Journalist of the Year” by the Rotary Club of Manila for a series of stories she wrote for the PCIJ detailing the fabulous but unexplained wealth of the Ampatuan clan in Maguindanao.

Canadian Ambassador Christopher Thornley praised Arguillas for her exceptional pioneering work with the community press, and her devotion to the principles of excellence in journalism. In particular, Thornley said Arguillas was tireless in helping train Mindanao journalists in order to raise professional and ethical standards of journalism in the region.

The Canadian embassy in Manila is the principal sponsor of the McLuhan Fellowship, which gives Filipino journalists an opportunity to travel to Canada for two weeks to observe Canadian media and governance agencies. A second phase of the Fellowship involves a lecture-visit to at least five universities across the Philippines to allow interaction between students and the McLuhan Fellows.

Arguillas’s award follows last year’s selection of PCIJ MUltimedia Director Ed Lingao as the 2010 Marshall McLuhan Fellow. Last month, Lingao was also named “Journalist of the Year” by the Rotary Club of Manila.

Philippine Daily Inquirer senior editor John Nery was also named the first awardee of the Sandra Burton-Nieman Fellowship, which gives a Filipino journalist an opportunity to study in Harvard for one year. The Fellowship was named after former Time magazine Hong Kong bureau chief Sandra Burton, who had covered the Philippines extensively during the last years of Marcos regime. Burton became a personal friend of both slain Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. and the late President Corazon C. Aquino.

After her death, Burton bequeathed to the Aquino family an amount of money that now assists some projects of the Ninoy and Cory Aquino Foundation, including the 10-month stay in Harvard of a Nieman Fellow from the Philippines.

The two Fellowships were awarded on Thursday during the 15th Jaime V. Ongpin (JVO) Journalism Seminar organized by the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR). The CMFR has been selected by the Aquino family and the Embassy of Canada to supervise the awarding of the two Fellowships.

PCIJ Executive Director Malou Mangahas, a former Nieman Fellow herself, was also selected as one of the panelists in the Jaime V. Ongpin Journalism Seminar.

The seminar is a yearly gathering organized by the CMFR to allow a sharing of insights between journalism students and the journalism community. – PCIJ, June 2011