Dorothy Parvaz, a U.S. journalist who was captured, jailed and interrogated for 19 days while covering the civil war in Syria-then returned to reporting there upon her release-has been named the 2013 recipient of the McGill Medal for Journalistic Courage.
A reporter for Al Jazeera‘s English-language channel in Doha, Qatar, Parvaz will receive the medal from the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication and its McGill Program in Journalistic Courage during a ceremony in the fall.
Parvaz was jailed upon entry to Syria in April 2011, held for three days, then deported to Iran, where she was held and interrogated an additional 16 days, then returned to Qatar.
Parvaz’s selection was made by the 2012 class of McGill Fellows-12 undergraduate and graduate students chosen for academic achievement, practical experience and leadership.
Born in Iran to an Iranian father and American mother, Parvaz earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of British Columbia and a master’s degree from the University of Arizona. She has been a journalism fellow at Harvard and Cambridge and worked for the Seattle Times and the Seattle Post Intelligencer before joining Al Jazeera.
The McGill Medal is named for Ralph McGill, the late editor and publisher of the Atlanta Constitution.
He was regarded by many as “the conscience of the South” for his editorials challenging racial segregation in the 1950s and 1960s.
