From 9/11 to India’s shame: journalist credits degree

Five years ago, Valerie Fortney, BA’86, was in New York City reporting on Fashion Week for the Calgary Herald. As the world changed for so many in the morning hours of September 11, 2001, Fortney’s focus shifted from socializing with Donald Trump and Paris Hilton to reporting on the tragic events unfolding as she made her way to lower Manhattan, fighting the throng of ash-covered office workers heading away from the World Trade Center.

“Through my shock, I did my work the best I knew how, leaning on the support of colleagues in the Herald newsroom throughout the long, exhausting day. I didn’t think, ‘What a wonderful opportunity for a journalist’,” she wrote recently in the Herald on the tragedy’s fifth anniversary. “I also didn’t want to be known as the female fashion writer who caved when faced with a real reporting challenge.”

Fortney has built on that experience in the five years since, tackling other challenging stories and issues.

She didn’t hesitate last year when Malcolm Kirk, then editor-in-chief of the Calgary Herald (and now its publisher), offered her the opportunity to be part of a four-member team of reporters and photographers from the Herald and the Vancouver Province that would produce a special report on sham weddings by Canadians to women in India.

In spite of the challenges of traveling to India, the controversial nature of the issue and the potential for violence, Fortney “knew the moment I heard the idea that it was a great story,” she recalls.

The five-part Abandoned Brides: Canada’s Shame, India’s Sorrow ran in October 2005.
The exposure has led to changes in governmental procedures and the issuance of a religious decree condemning the practice.

“I’m thrilled to see that our efforts shed light on the exploitation of these young brides and their families,” Fortney says, “and I’m heartened to see the issue being given much bigger attention both in India and in the West.”

Fortney and her three colleagues have earned several awards for their work. Earlier this year they received a Citation of Merit at the 2005 National Newspaper Awards (Fortney received the same recognition five years ago for her 9/11 coverage). Two months ago, the team was honoured at Columbia University in New York with the prestigious Daniel Pearl Award for 2005’s outstanding story about South Asia, or South Asians in North America, a competition open to all print media outlets in North America. Pearl was the Wall Street Journal’s Mumbai bureau chief who was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan by terrorists in 2002.

“Winning this award was such an incredible honour, especially in light of the fact it’s named after a courageous journalist who lost his life in pursuit of the truth,” Fortney says. “Coming in first over the likes of the New York Times and Chicago Tribune shows that even a smaller newspaper can do great things with the right leadership, vision and support for its journalists,” she adds.

It was also just announced that the series has won the Commonwealth Press Union/Rolls Royce Words & Images Award that recognizes the complementary crafts of writing and photojournalism. Last week, the team was also shortlisted for a Webster Award for print news reporting from the B.C.-based Jack Webster Foundation. Winners will be announced in October.

Fortney credits her U of C undergraduate experience as a psychology student and a writer at The Gauntlet as keys to providing a strong foundation for her career as a reporter and columnist.
“A journalist is thrown daily into a multitude of subject areas, and my widely varied educational background has always served me well in this regard,” she says. “My psychology background has been a big advantage; on a given day, I can find myself interviewing people from all walks of life, all strata of society.

“An understanding of people and basic human nature is one of a journalist’s best assets.”

By Matthew Fox