Li Chengpeng didn’t start out wanting to make a difference. In his past life he was a cool and popular soccer announcer. He was also a believer in the Chinese government. Now he’s a little older and has become an unlikely patriot. He has achieved a certain celebrity status in China, not for being a good-looking sportscaster, but rather for his daring social criticism. Five years ago Li became a online activist fighting against the illusions propagated by the Chinese government. And he is definitely still cool. His blog has over 7 million fans who call him “Big Eyes Li”. He has a special influence on the young and media savvy in China who are working on creating a new information generation that is nipping at the edges of a civil society. He is also the 2013 Bobs winner for best blog.

“I view the Bobs awards as one of the few really important prizes I have been given in the past years,” said Li in an interview with DW after the prize was announced. “The Bobs is precious to me because I don’t receive any awards in China. As you might know, authors who speak out the truth have a rough time.”

A free press is a vital ingredient if economic development is to improve the well-being of Chinese people. This will not be easy, and support from places like DW plays an important role.

Li will be in Germany next Tuesday to accept the award at the 2013 Global Media Forum in Bonn and he is looking forward to meeting like minded bloggers. “I would like to speak with them about how they managed to break through their walls,” he said.

Representatives from the five other jury winners will join Li as a part of the ceremony.  Also coming out of China is the winner for best innovation, freeweibo.com,  a play on words from the Chinese microblogging website SinaWeibo. FreeWeibo provides access to content that has been filtered by Chinese government censors – and the award will be presented to Carl Lee in Bonn.  Also receiving their awards will be  Stephanie Hankey for the Most Creative and Original, Kodjo  Kiki Kouassi for the Reporters Without Borders Award, Houda Lamqaddam for Best Social Activism and Acter Mahfuza for the Global Media Forum Award.

The quake that changed his life
Crumbling walls are what changed Li from conformist to crusader. After witnessing the destructive aftermath of an earthquake in 2008, he was deeply moved by the loss of life and was compelled to independently investigate construction codes. He discovered many buildings were built using sub-standard materials except for one school that didn’t collapse because it was actually built properly. This inspired his first essay, “The truth about the amazing survival of students and teachers at the Longhan primary school.”

Using his typical sarcasm Li has said about his life: “before 2008, I was an idiot.” The earthquake collapsed Li’s illusions and he realized that truly being a patriot meant working for the well-being of his fellow citizens and providing an example for others. Since then he has been working to tell the truth about the small things that can have a big impact.

“He gives young people a very good example of how to influence the future cause of China,” said Chinese journalist and Bobs jury member, Hu Yong. “The award shows that the jury members also think that a blogger like Li Chengpeng can influence millions of young Chinese people in making them aware of censorship, to be more free, more open and to be more active in the political process.”

In January thousands of fans lined the street for the release of his new book, a collection of essays titled, “The whole world knows”. At the event he was forbidden by authorities from communicating with the audience in any way but he managed to sneak across one message – “I love you all”, written in marker on his t-shirt.

Find out more about the Bobs and all of this year’s winners at www.thebobs.com

In 2008 when she won the Bobs for best blog, she could only leave a video message to let everyone know what an important contribution the Bobs award would make in encouraging free speech in Cuba.  After waiting nine years and winning many awards in absentia, the laws in Cuba changed and Yaoni Sánchez could travel the world and collect all of the trophies that had been put on ice while she was stuck behind a wall of oppression.

“We don’t have a wall in Cuba made of cement,” she said while at the Berlin Wall during a visit in May to collect her Bobs award. “Our wall is a system of control, censorship, and surveillance – it is harder to tear it down.”

While technology enables change, Sánchez personifies it. Her blog may often be blocked, but actions speak louder than words and awards like the Bobs take her message outside of the box. Sánchez speaks for Cuba however what she is doing goes much farther. Her work in exposing the truth about the hardships of everyday life encourages activists all over the world.

When accepting her Bobs award in May, Sanchez dedicated it to people everywhere who are using new technology to speak out and improve their lives. DW Editor-in-Chief Ute Schaeffer added, “we are proud to be able to support bloggers and Internet activists like you in the fight for human rights and freedom of expression – your efforts are an invaluable step toward a freer Cuban society. With this award we want to unmistakably point out how important your work is.”

Bringing the voices together
Since 2004 the Bobs has brought together people from around the world who are working behind the screens and exposing truths that would otherwise stay in the dark. It isn’t surprising that in the past many winners have not been allowed to travel and participate in the award ceremonies. Ironically by preventing people from leaving, authoritarian governments do more to emphasize why the Bobs are so important than the mere presence of an activist ever could. Holding people like Sánchez back only makes them more interesting.

The 2013 winner for best blog, Chinese activist Li Chengpeng, said Chinese authorities were “out of their minds” when they forbid him to communicate with thousands of fans at a recent book signing. Sánchez has also met resistance even outside of Cuba. At a recent appearance in Italy, Castro loyalists threw fake US Dollar bills on the stage with Sánchez’s face printed on them. She sat there almost smiling, the senseless protest of her as being a “puppet for the west” was almost doing her work for her.

But there is still much work to be done and the Bobs are there to help show the world that there are fewer and fewer places for lies to hide and more opportunities and technologies for people to tell the truth about what is happening in their communities. Websites like the 2013 Bobs winner for best innovation Free Weibo, which posts content censored in China are the tip of iceberg for new technology getting around censorship. The 2011 Bobs winner for “best use of technology for social good” was a Russian website that tracked corrupt purchases by state officials. The list of Bobs winners is sure to get more interesting as technology improves but we should always remember it is people that count the most.

The endeavors of Yoani Sánchez, and many other bloggers working all over the world, remind us that freedom of speech is not to be taken for granted, even if the privileges enjoyed by many people may cause us to forget. What they are doing is exactly what the Bobs and DW stand for and will continue to support until every voice can be heard.

The winners of this year’s Bobs will be presented with their awards at the Global Media Forum in Bonn on June 18. You can find out more about the conference here.

On June 17, the sixth DW Global Media Forum will kick off with a celebration of DW’s 60th anniversary. DW Director General, Eric Bettermann will welcome distinguished guests for a discussion on the changing values of international broadcasters in a globalized world. DW will also welcome speakers like Bernd Neumann, Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, and Lutz Marmor, ARD Chairman and Director General of Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR). This year’s Global Media Forum focuses on economic values and the media.

Another highlight from the conference’s first day will be a keynote speech from world renowned American linguist, philosopher, and political thinker, Avram Noam Chomsky. He will talk about how the media is being challenged from citizens who are reviving democracy.

The second day will start off with a session on global governance with guests including Aart de Geus, Chairman and CEO of the Bertelsmann Stiftung. This will be followed by a keynote speech and discussion from the German Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs, Guido Westerwelle.  The day will conclude with the 2013 Bobs awards ceremony.

On Wednesday June 19, the conference will come to a close with a keynote speech by physicist, philosopher and environmental activist, Vandana Shiva and final remarks from Bettermann. If you are interested in attending and being part of this year’s event, be sure to register as soon as possible.

The Internet is full of funny, pithy and sometimes even breath-taking clips, but they’re not always easy to find. That’s why Euromaxx searches high and low to find the best for Clipmania. And to celebrate the celebrated its 100th episode, our editors designed a contest called  Clipmania 100. Viewers and users voted for the 100 best user-generated videos from the almost 300 that have been featured on the program over the past two years. The contest generated over 5,000 letters to the editors and the videos were viewed over 230,000 times on DW’s YouTube channel. The winning entry  titled Black Hole came from English authors Olly Williams and Phillip Sansom. The two-minute video is about an overworked employee who somehow prints out a black hole during the nightshift.

Clipmania 100 ran from January 1 to April 26 and you can find the playlist of all the videos on YouTube.

 

At the 2013 World Media Festival in Hamburg, DW programming won three gold awards in competition with over 600 entries coming from 36 countries. The festival, hosted by intermedia, is an international competition that celebrates modern media. The DW documentary Schumann at Pier 2, an all access musical journey featuring special performances of Schumann’s four symphonies, won first prize in the category Documentaries – Arts. DW’s weekly magazine covering all things online, Shift – Living in the digital age, won gold in the category Documentaries- Magazine Formats. Namati’s World – The dreams and fears of a young coral in the South Pacific is a web documentary that tells the story of a 114-year-old brain coral with captivating underwater footage taken off the coast of the Pacific archipelago nation of Vanuatu. The multimedia production won the gold in Education and E-Learning. DW programming also received five silver awards in a wide range of categories.