Jimmie Briggs
As a thirty-something-black American journalist, I naturally feel drawn to issues that tend to be overlooked or sensationalized. I do not consider myself a "war reporter" though my past reporting of the child soldier phenomenon has led me into more than a few life-threatening situations in order to understand and accurately report the experiences of affected individuals. While at LIFE magazine, I reported a story that concerned the children and families of American soldiers dealing with Gulf War Syndrome, and spurred a Congressional presentation of the article. After several years at LIFE I worked with Sydney Schanberg--the former Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who inspired the 1984 film "The Killing Fields"--on a story on child labor in Pakistan and India. Later, I had the opportunity to do research on throwaway babies with Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed.
My articles on conflict and gender rights have been published in The Washington Post, The New York Times Magazine, EMERGE, The Village Voice, The Source, Fortune, VIBE, Essence, El Pais, One World, The Crisis, PDN, Poz and El Semanal. I have appeared on numerous radio programs and print interviews. In summer, 2002, I was profiled in the documentary film magazine, The Independent, for my work with WITNESS and research of child soldiers. In March of 2006, my book Innocents Lost: When Child Soldiers Go To War was selected as a finalist for the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Book Award. Presently, I am completing a book on the lives of women and girls in war, focusing on the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kosovo and Afghanistan.