Paul Richard Watson (born July 13, 1959) is a
Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
photojournalist, Pulitzer Prize-winner and author of three books: ''Where War Lives,'' ''Magnum Revolution: 65 Years of Fighting for Freedom,'' and ''Ice Ghosts: The Epic Hunt for the Lost Franklin Expedition'' (2017). The Guardian newspaper named ICE GHOSTS one of the best science books of 2017. The CBC, Canada’s national broadcaster, put ''Ice Ghosts'' at the top of its 2017 "Holiday Gift Guide: 12 Books for the Science and Nature Enthusiast on Your List."
Biography
Watson was born in
Weston
Weston may refer to:
Places Australia
* Weston, Australian Capital Territory, a suburb of Canberra
* Weston, New South Wales
* Weston Creek, a residential district of Canberra
* Weston Park, Canberra, a park
Canada
* Weston, Nova Scotia
* ...
,
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...
. He was awarded the 1994
Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography
The Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography is one of the American Pulitzer Prizes annually awarded for journalism. From 2000 it has used the "breaking news" name but it is considered a continuation of the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photogr ...
for his photograph, taken in 1993 while covering the civil war in
Somalia
Somalia, , Osmanya script: 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘𐒕𐒖; ar, الصومال, aṣ-Ṣūmāl officially the Federal Republic of SomaliaThe ''Federal Republic of Somalia'' is the country's name per Article 1 of thProvisional Constituti ...
for the ''
Toronto Star
The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. The newspaper is the country's largest daily newspaper by circulation. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and pa ...
'' newspaper. The photograph depicted US Army
160th SOAR
The 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne), abbreviated as 160th SOAR (A), is a special operations force of the United States Army that provides helicopter aviation support for special operations forces. Its missions have include ...
, Super 64 crew chief Staff Sgt. William Cleveland's body being dragged by Somalis through the streets of
Mogadishu
Mogadishu (, also ; so, Muqdisho or ; ar, مقديشو ; it, Mogadiscio ), locally known as Xamar or Hamar, is the capital and most populous city of Somalia. The city has served as an important port connecting traders across the Indian Oc ...
.
His reporting and photography spans almost three decades and includes conflicts in more than a dozen countries on several continents. Among those are: Eritrea, Somalia, southern Sudan, Angola, Mozambique, South Africa, Romania, Serbia and Kosovo, as well as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir, Iraq and Syria.
While at the ''Toronto Star'', Watson earned four Canadian National Newspaper Awards for photography and stories on the child sex trade in Asia, anarchy in Somalia following the 1991 overthrow dictator Mohammed Siad Barre, and the torture and murder of a Somali teen by Canadian soldiers after a U.S.-led force intervened to end a famine in 1992.
He received the Drummer General’s Award in 2007 for his book ''
Where War Lives'', based on his experiences as a war journalist. ''
The Globe and Mail
''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...
'' of
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...
named it one of the "year’s 100 most notable books".
His second book, ''Magnum Revolution: 65 Years of Fighting for Freedom'', showcases the legendary agency's photographers' images of, and personal insights into uprisings spanning almost seven decades. It was co-written with ''The New Yorker''′s Jon Lee Anderson and published by Prestel in Europe, the U.S. and Canada in 2012.
Watson was featured in director Martyn Burke's 2012 documentary ''Under Fire: Journalists in Combat'', which was shortlisted for an Academy Award. The film won a prestigious Peabody Award in 2013.
His work is on permanent display at the Newseum, in Washington, D.C., in the journalism museum's Pulitzer Prize Photographs Gallery.
Watson is also the subject of the Kennedy Award-winning play by
Dan O'Brien
Daniel Dion O'Brien (born July 18, 1966) is an American former decathlete and Olympic gold medalist. He won the Olympic title in 1996, three consecutive world championships (1991, 1993, 1995), and set the world record in 1992.
Early life
O'Br ...
entitled ''The Body of an American'', staged in London in 2014. The collaboration led to O'Brien's book of poetry ''War Reporter'', published in the U.S. and Europe in 2013.
Paul Watson holds a Master's Degree from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs in New York. He was the South Asia bureau chief for the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...
'', where his coverage area included
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
,
Pakistan
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...
,
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
, and
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...
. He was Southeast Asia bureau chief, based in Jakarta, when he left the ''Los Angeles Times'' to return to ''The Toronto Star'' in July, 2009. He also served as Balkans bureau chief for the ''LA Times'' during his decade as a foreign correspondent with the newspaper.
In 2015, Watson resigned from the Toronto Star, where he was a multi-media reporter, covering the Arctic and Aboriginal beat. He also did foreign assignments in Afghanistan, Syria, Russia and India in his second stint at ''The Toronto Star'', which was then Canada's largest circulation daily newspaper. His resignation followed The Star's decision to kill an investigative story into the then Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper to use the historic 2014 discovery of the wreck of Sir John Franklin's flagship, HMS ''Erebus,'' for political propaganda. The story was then published by BuzzFeed and won a National Magazine Award for investigative reporting along with a Digital Publishing Award for long-form storytelling.
Watson was the only journalist aboard
CCGS ''Sir Wilfrid Laurier'', a Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker, the lead vessel in the 2014 Victoria Strait Expedition, when archeologists aboard found ''Erebus'' in eastern Queen Maud Gulf, in the same area where Inuit had said for generations a large ship went down. Watson tells the story of the hunt for the lost Franklin Expedition in his 2017 book ''Ice Ghosts''.
In 2018, Ice Ghosts was a finalist for the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize.
Awards
*
Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography
The Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography is one of the American Pulitzer Prizes annually awarded for journalism. From 2000 it has used the "breaking news" name but it is considered a continuation of the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photogr ...
, 1994
*National Magazine Award (Silver), 2016
*Digital Publishing Award (Silver), 2016
*
Robert Capa Gold Medal The Robert Capa Gold Medal is an award for "best published photographic reporting from abroad requiring exceptional courage and enterprise". It is awarded annually by the Overseas Press Club of America (OPC). It was created in honor of the war photo ...
, Overseas Press Club of America.
*
George Polk Award
The George Polk Awards in Journalism are a series of American journalism awards presented annually by Long Island University in New York in the United States. A writer for Idea Lab, a group blog hosted on the website of PBS, described the awar ...
, foreign reporting
*Freedom of the Press Award,
National Press Club (USA), Washington, D.C.
*Hal Boyle Award, foreign reporting,
Overseas Press Club
The Overseas Press Club of America (OPC) was founded in 1939 in New York City by a group of foreign correspondents. The wire service reporter Carol Weld was a founding member, as was the war correspondent Peggy Hull. The club seeks to maintain ...
of America
*
South Asian Journalists Association
The South Asian Journalists Association (SAJA) was founded in 1994 in New York City. Sree Sreenivisan, Dilip Massand, M.K. Srinivasan and Om Malik co-founded SAJA as a networking organization for South Asian journalists. It is a group of more th ...
’s Daniel Pearl Award, honouring the best print reporting from the region, for coverage of Afghanistan
*Canadian National Newspaper Awards
References
External links
Paul Watson's Website*Watson, Paul (2007). ''
Where War Lives'' McClelland & Stewart Ltd.
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Watson, Paul
Canadian photojournalists
Pulitzer Prize for Photography winners
Living people
1959 births
School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University alumni