News about the activities of the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas
Threatened Colombian TV journalist returns to the air, urges reporters to expose barbaritiesThreatened Colombian TV journalist returns to the air, urges reporters to expose barbarities
By EVA MENEZES
AUSTIN, Texas — Colombian journalist Hollman Morris has enough reasons to leave his home country, but he has a higher calling and assures he will not give in.
“We live in a country at war, marked by the war. We have to give face and voice to the victims of that war. My role is to take those people out of anonymity and combat the barbarity,” he said during a talk at the University of Texas at Austin on Sept. 10 that was organized by the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas.
Morris' TV program "Contravía" (Countercurrent) returned to the air Sept. 17 after an eight-month hiatus due to threats and a lack of funds.
For the past 40 years, an armed conflict involving paramilitary and guerrilla groups and official security forces has been ravaging Colombia, affecting millions of people, including peasants, Afro-descendants and indigenous groups.
Amidst so much violence, Morris has, for 15 years, defended the oppressed and showed the war from their perspective, which has brought him important awards, but also threats and persecution.
“It is important to show these people’s lives and faces so that others can understand the problem and diagnose a solution,” the journalist said.
“I’m a Colombian journalist and, as a Colombian, I unfortunately haven’t seen one single peaceful day in my country. This small detail crosses my professional life and my history as a journalist,” Morris said.
Speaking to an audience of nearly 50 people, including UT students, staff and faculty who packed the School of Journalism’s Lady Bird Johnson Conference Room, Morris’ message reached out especially to young journalism students.
“In the near future you will be the correspondents of the world’s most influential news outlets. I ask that you respect these developing countries’ communities. The story you write may stop a humanitarian drama,” he said.
Since 2003 Morris has directed and hosted Contravía, a weekly program that broadcasts on Colombia’s national television and whose primary concern is to defend and promote human rights. After an eight-month interruption, it returned to the air Sept. 17, with support from the Open Society Institute. The broadcast featured Part 1 of a three-part series about the death of Colombian journalist Jaime Garzón, who was assassinated in 1999.
Morris explained that, in bigger cities such as Bogotá, the traditional media don’t tell the stories of these voiceless people, so in his program he chronicles this other side of the war — something he defines as “the other Colombia.”
Matthew Tedrow, a third-year doctoral student in journalism, attended Morris’ talk and spoke about the uniqueness of the journalist’s work.
“The prestige press obscures important dimensions of the conflict, but when you see a Colombian helicopter, as we did [in video excerpts] today, just destroying these farmers’ livelihood, it puts a human face on the press in a way that you don’t really get here [in the U.S.],” he said. “I’m glad I came.”
In “Contravía”, Morris travels to the marginalized regions of Colombia, talks to locals and documents the human rights and humanitarian violations they have to endure. When asked how he gets these people to trust him, he said he sits at the table with them and eats what they eat. Most importantly, he listens to what they have to say, something the general press has forgotten to do.
“There is one magic word: respect,” he said. “They are people like us.”
In 2008, “Unwanted Witness”, a documentary that portrays Morris’ intense work in Colombia, one of the world’s most hostile countries to journalists, was released. In the film, one can see Morris’ courage and commitment, as well as the endless obstacles he constantly faces, including having to deal with death threats made to him and his family. The documentary has not yet been distributed in Colombia.
“Many people don’t want to see this disturbing reality,” Morris said. “But I didn’t go to [journalism] school to tell what people want to hear. I tell the reality.” This has, according to Morris, converted him into an “unwanted witness.”
In war situations, Morris said, the longer it takes for us to report on the oppressed people, the longer impunity prevails. So when you witness the injustices and go back to your newsrooms but aren’t allowed to tell what you have seen, “think about resigning from your jobs,” he told the many journalism students in the audience.
Latin American Studies graduate student Laura Gamboa, a Colombia native, noted Morris’ importance to her country as she walked out of the conference room.
“He’s one of the few people that show what is really going on. I’ve watched his show and I know a lot of people who do that, and I’m trying to make more people [watch it],” she said.
For Jennifer Potter-Miller, the Knight Center’s program manager, this was a special opportunity that students and the University community had to meet with the award-winning journalist.
Potter-Miller hopes that Morris’ message to the audience was that “journalists can change the world, that you can have a tremendous impact if you put yourself out there, if you do serious investigative reporting, if you look for the stories that nobody else is telling, if you just go to the edge.”
“He’s absolutely dedicated to his work, and that’s tremendously inspirational,” Potter-Miller concluded.
