Lech Walesa Media Awards - American Institute of Polish Culture

Lech Walesa Media Awards
President Lech Walesa premiered the Lech Walesa Media Award during the 38th
International Polonaise Ball in 2010. The Media Award is bestowed upon
individuals whose lives and works have impacted the world through the written word
and the field of communications. This award is the only one that President Walesa
confers in the United States.
2012
2013
2014
Year 2015 Recipient
David Ensor
for dedication to the cause of freedom and featuring Poland's history in mainstream media
David Ensor is the 28th Director of the Voice of America (VOA) where he oversees a worldwide
multimedia operation broadcasting in 45 languages and reaching over 172 million people each
week. He joined VOA after an extensive career in journalism and communications, and served as
Director of Communications and Public Diplomacy at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Earlier in 1975 to 1980, Ensor reported for NPR covering the White House and foreign policy;
from 1980 to 1998, he was a television correspondent for ABC News; and from 1998 to 2006 he
was CNN’s National Security Correspondent.
In 1982, ABC News sent Ensor to Poland to cover martial law which had been imposed by the
Communist leader, Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, in an attempt to crush the Solidarity movement.
Under the leadership of Lech Walesa, Solidarity toppled Communism in Poland which eventually
led to the collapse of the entire Soviet bloc. When Polish state television suppressed an interview
with Walesa while he was interned under martial law because of his defiant tone, Ensor obtained
a smuggled copy of the audio tape and shared it with the world. This and his coverage of many
David Ensor
other major international stories including two coup attempts, the first Chechen War from
Moscow, Middle Eastern terrorism, and the travels of Pope John Paul II earned Ensor worldwide recognition.
As a correspondent for CNN, Ensor completed a feature documentary on the Warsaw Uprising, detailing the historical account of
the Polish Home Army’s heroic fight against Nazi Germany and Soviet occupation in August 1944. During this little known battle
to keep brutal oppressors from occupying their country, over 200,000 Poles were killed by the Germans. The TV special, Warsaw
Rising: The Forgotten Soldiers of WWII, aired on Sunday, June 6, 2004, the 60th anniversary of the uprising, and showed the
world how the people of Warsaw responded to German occupation.
Ensor is fluent in French with a basic knowledge of Polish, Russian and Italian. He received a B.A. with honors in European
History from the University of California, Berkeley in 1974. In 1984, he married Anita Luzinska of Warsaw, herself a former NBC
News television producer, in a ceremony officiated by Fr. Jerzy Popieluszko, a chaplain of the opposition movement in Poland
who was subsequently murdered by the Communist secret police. They have two children, Karolina and Andrew.
Lech Walesa Media Awards
President Lech Walesa premiered the Lech Walesa Media Award during the 38th
International Polonaise Ball in 2010. The Media Award is bestowed upon
individuals whose lives and works have impacted the world through the written word
and the field of communications. This award is the only one that President Walesa
confers in the United States.
2011
2012
2013
Year 2014 Recipient
Andrew Nagorski
for dedication to the cause of freedom and writing about Poland's history and culture
Andrew Nagorski, who was born in Scotland to Polish parents, moved to
the United States as an infant and has rarely stopped moving since. An
award-winning journalist who spent more than three decades as a foreign
correspondent and editor for Newsweek, Nagorski is currently Vice
President and Director of Public Policy at the EastWest Institute, a New
York-based international affairs think tank. He earned a B.A. magna cum
laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Amherst College in 1969, and studied at
the Jagiellonian University in Krakow.
As senior editor for Newsweek from 2000 to 2008, Nagorski handled the
editorial cooperation between the parent magazine and its expanding
network of foreign language editions and other joint venture partners.
Andrew Nagorski
Among the new magazines that were launched during his tenure was
Newsweek Polska, which has become Poland’s leading news magazine since it started publication in 2001.
Nagorski has written several non-fiction books that address historical events that have impacted the past and formed
current world ideologies. His most recent book, Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power, received
rave reviews in numerous publications, including The New York Review of Books and The Columbia Journalism Review.
His first novel, Last Stop Vienna, about a young German who joins the early Nazi movement and is then propelled into a
confrontation with Hitler, was on the Washington Post’s bestseller list.
In November 2009, Poland’s Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski presented Nagorski with the newly created Bene Merito
award for his reporting from Poland about the Solidarity movement in the 1980s. In 2011, Poland’s President Bronislaw
Komorowski awarded him the Cavalry Cross for the same reason.
Year 2012 Recipients
Alexander Storozynski
President of the Kosciuszko Foundation, world-wide promoter of Polish history and culture
Alex Storozynski is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, a former member of the New York
Daily News editorial board, founding editor of amNewYork and former city editor of the New
York Sun. He has also been published in the European edition of The Wall Street Journal,
The Chicago Tribune, The New York Post, Newsday and other publications.
Storozynski served as chairman of the Polish and Slavic Federal Credit Union, which has
more than $1 billion in assets and 70,000 members, making it the largest ethnic credit union
in the United States. In 2004, the Polish magazine Przegląd called Storozynski "a new type
of leader in the Polish community," and even though he was born in Brooklyn, the magazine
named him one of the "100 most influential Poles living abroad." In 2005, Polish-American
World named him "Man of the Year" and in 2006, President Kaczynski awarded him with the
"Gold Cross of Service" for his articles about Poland. And in 2007 the American Center of
Polish Culture in Washington, D.C. awarded him for his "distinguished achievement in the
field of journalism."
Alexander Storozynski
In November 2008, he was elected President of The Kosciuszko Foundation. His biography
of Kosciuszko, The Peasant Prince: Thaddeus Kosciuszko and the Age of Revolution, was
published in 2009.
Year 2011 Recipients
Irene Tomaszewski
Author and Editor, for her lifelong contributions to promoting to Polish history and culture
Born in Archangielsk, Siberia after her parents were deported there in 1940, Irene
Tomaszewski is a Montreal writer who has written for some of Canada's major
newspapers and magazines. She is the author of Inside a Gestapo Prison: the Letters
of Krystyna Wituska and co-author of Codename Zegota: the Council for Aid to Jews
in Wartime Poland, published in May 2010. Ms. Tomaszewski is also an editor and
writer with Cosmopolitan Review, an online quarterly magazine which encourages new
writers to publish alongside well-established writers such as Norman Davies, Witold
Rybczynski, Wanda Urbanska and Timothy Snyder.
Irene Tomaszewski
Ms. Tomaszewski is the founding president of the Canadian Foundation for Polish
Studies (CFPS), which presents English language programs about Poland in
cooperation with McGill and Concordia Universities. In 2003, Ms. Tomaszewski
participated in organizing the curriculum for a 10-day summer program in Polish
studies in the town of Canmore, Alberta, aptly named "Poland in the Rockies" with the
support and participation of top authorities in the field, among them Norman Davies,
Tamara Trojanowska, Andrew Nagorski and Alex Storozynski.
Year 2010 Recipients
Dr. Horacio Aguirre
Founder/Editor of Diario Las Americas, for his impact on improving the world through journalism
Dr. Horacio Aguirre will receive a special Media Award from President Lech Walesa for his
role as the founding Editor and Editorial Writer of Diario Las Americas, Miami’s original
Spanish language daily newspaper which has been published continuously since July 4,
1953. Dr. Aguirre holds a law and political science degree from the University of Panama
and has served in numerous capacities with the Inter American Press Association.
Dr. Aguirre has been a member of the Board of Directors of the American Institute of
Polish Culture in Miami for over 30 years. His newspaper has featured articles on Poland’s
history and culture as well as educational and cultural events organized in South Florida.
He also maintains membership in organizations including the World Press Freedom
Committee, World Association of Newspapers, the Spain-USA Chamber of Commerce, the
Panamanian Academy of International Law and the Association of Cuban Journalists in
Exile.
Dr. Horacio Aguirre has been recognized by many prestigious organizations, universities
and Hispanic governments for his tremendous contributions to Miami’s community.
Dr. Horacio Aguirre
Anders Gyllenhaal
Executive Editor of the Miami Herald, for his innovative leadership and excellence in journalism
Anders Gyllenhaal is the executive editor of The Miami Herald, with responsibility for the
news staff, from print and online to radio and web TV. His leadership and vision has seen
his newsrooms awarded an unbroken string of President’s Awards, the twice-annual award
for excellence bestowed by the newspaper group, The McClatchy Company.
He worked for 12 years as a reporter, investigative team member and city desk editor.
Before that he was editor of the Star Tribune in Minneapolis and was executive editor of the
Raleigh News & Observer.
A graduate of George Washington University, Gyllenhaal serves on the Board of the Pulitzer
Prize, chairs the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism and is a member of the Journalism
Advisory Board at Elon University in North Carolina.
Anders and his wife, Beverly, a syndicated columnist and author, live in Coral Gables. They
have two children.
Anders Gyllenhaal