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Polk Award Winners: Jason Motlagh

Overview

Shownote

Highlights

Transcript

Chapters

Pins

Polk Award Winners: Jason Motlagh

Longform

2024/04/19
Longform

Longform

2024/04/19
OverviewShownoteHighlightsTranscriptChaptersPins

Shownote

Jason Motlagh, a journalist and filmmaker, is a contributing editor at Rolling Stone and the founder of Blackbeard Films. He won the Polk's Sydney Schanberg Prize for “This Will End in Blood and Ashes,” an account of the collapse of order in Haiti. “Once y...

Highlights

In this final episode of a series spotlighting George Polk Award winners, journalist and filmmaker Jason Motlagh reflects on the moral weight, emotional toll, and deep human connections behind his immersive reporting from Haiti’s most volatile zones.
10:53
Motlagh and his team entered La Saline—a seaside slum with flooded, trash-filled streets that police had failed to penetrate—to report on conditions after a massacre
15:55
Barbecue, a powerful Haitian figure, secured the release of a detained British teenager from Afghanistan
18:53
Chose to center the Haiti story on a father who lost his sons to G9 gunfire
26:49
The Rana Plaza story required over two months of work and had a great impact
34:53
Becoming a father made sitting with people in difficult situations harder
37:51
He aims to make his reporting impact the head, heart, and gut

Chapters

How a Decade of Trust Led Him Into Haiti’s Most Lawless Neighborhoods
00:00
What Happens When a Gang Leader Gives You Permission to Enter Their Territory?
13:30
Why Most Foreign Reporters Aren’t Showing Up—and What That Leaves Behind
18:53
Can a Single Story Change How the World Sees a Crisis? (And Why It Takes Years)
26:49
What Does It Really Take to Stay in the Room With Someone Who’s Just Lost Everything?
31:47
How Becoming a Parent Changed the Way He Listens, Reports, and Bears Witness
37:51

Transcript

Evan Ratliff: Recommendations can be great. Maybe someone recommended this podcast, and here you are. But home projects are a little different. If the podcast isn't your thing, you might lose a few minutes from your day. But if you hire your cousin's neigh...