Reporter Wins Award for Undergoing Circumcision with Bamboo Twigs in Order to Write a Story

Simon Eroro, an Australian journalist, really wanted to talk a group of rebels in Papua New Guinea. He crossed many miles of wild, dangerous territory to find them, only to be told that he must be circumcised to meet with them. And they do circumcision the old fashioned way.

No, not a scalpel. Not even a knife. Slivers of bamboo.

In recognition of the extreme efforts that he went to to get the story, Eroro won a local journalism award:

In his subsequent reporting for the Post-Courier newspaper, Mr Eroro exposed the cross-border movements of Free West Papua militants from Indonesia into Papua New Guinea. The judges of News Ltd's Scoop of the Year prize said the reports had led to a major police operation to tighten the borders.

"The impact of Simon's scoop was enormous; the police commissioner launched a major operation to tighten the borders and close down the [Free West Papua] refugee camps," the judges said.

Link -via Dave Barry | Photo: Flickr user CIFOR