Shorenstein Journalism Award

APARC's 2019 Journalism Award winner Maria Ressa speaking at Stanford

Shorenstein Journalism Award

Promoting excellence in journalistic coverage of the Asia-Pacific region

Award Update

The 2025 Shorenstein Journalism Award is open for nominations through February 15, 2025. Read on to learn about the award and its nomination process, watch the 2024 award ceremony that honored Chris Buckley of The New York Times, and view information about our past award recipients.

About the Shorenstein Journalism Award

The Shorenstein Journalism Award, which carries a cash prize of US $10,000, recognizes outstanding journalists and news media organizations for excellence in covering the Asia-Pacific region and helping audiences worldwide understand its complexities. The award defines the Asia-Pacific region as encompassing Northeast, Southeast, South, and Central Asia, as well as Australasia. Award recipients are veteran journalists with a distinguished body of work or established news organizations that publish regularly and adhere to the highest standards of journalistic integrity.

The award is sponsored and presented by the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) at Stanford University. It commemorates the legacy of APARC's benefactor, Mr. Walter H. Shorenstein, and his twin passions for promoting excellence in journalism and understanding of Asia. It also demonstrates APARC's support of journalism that persistently and courageously seeks accuracy, deep reporting, and nuanced coverage in an age when attacks are regularly launched on the independent news media, on fact-based truth, and on those who tell it.

An annual tradition, the Shorenstein Journalism Award alternates between recipients whose work has primarily appeared in Western news media and those whose work has primarily appeared in Asian news media. Candidates in the latter category include journalists and news organizations who, in addition to their recognized excellence, may have helped defend press freedom and encourage free media in one or more countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

The award ceremony is held at Stanford in the autumn quarter. The presentation of the award is followed by the honoree's keynote address, which headlines a public panel discussion on a topic relevant to their work.

Award Selection Committee

The Award Selection Committee presides over the judging of nominees and is responsible for the selection of honorees. The current members of the committee are:

William Dobson, Coeditor of the Journal of Democracy

Anna Fifield, Asia-Pacific Editor, The Washington Post; 2018 Shorenstein Journalism Award Winner

James Hamilton, Hearst Professor of Communication, Chair of the Department of Communication, and Director of the Stanford Journalism Program, Stanford University

Louisa Lim, Associate Professor, Audio-Visual Journalism Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne

Raju Narisetti, Publisher, McKinsey Global Publishing, McKinsey and Company

Award Nominations

Nominations for the 2025 cycle of the Shorenstein Journalism Award are open through February 15, 2025.

Visit the nominations page to submit an entry

2024 Shorenstein Journalism Award Honors Chris Buckley, the Chief China Correspondent for The New York Times

Buckley received the Shorenstein Award on October 15, 2024, at Stanford. At the award ceremony, he discussed the power of historical memory in shaping China's present under Xi Jinping's leadership.

Award Winners

Chris Buckley, 2024 Winner

Chris Buckley delivers remarks at the 2024 Shorenstein Journalism Award.

The Caravan and Hartosh Singh Bal, 2023 Winners

Hartosh Singh Bal speaking at the 2023 Shorenstein Journalism Award.

Emily Feng, 2022 Winner

Emily Feng speaking at the 2022 Shorenstein Journalism Award.

Maria Ressa, 2019 Winner

Anna Fifield, 2018 Winner

Anna Fifield speaking at a panel discussion.

Complete List of Winners

2024 - Chris Buckley
Chief China Correspondent, The New York Times
Announcement | Summary article, audio, and video

2023 - The Caravan
India's premier magazine of long-form journalism
Announcement | Summary article, audio, and video

2022 - Emily Feng
Beijing Correspondent, NPR
Announcement | Summary article, audio, and video

2021 - Swe Win
Editor-in-Chief, Myanmar Now
Announcement | Summary article, audio, and video

2020 - Tom Wright
Author, journalist, and speaker
Announcement | Summary article, audio, and video

2019 - Maria Ressa
CEO and Executive Editor, Rappler
Announcement | Summary article, audio, and video

2018 - Anna Fifield
Beijing Bureau Chief, The Washington Post
Announcement | Summary article, audio, and video

2017 - Siddharth Varadarajan
Founder and Editor, The Wire
Announcement | S ummary article and video

2016 - Ian Johnson
Author and frequent contributor to The New York Times, New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, and National Geographic
Announcement | Summary article | Video

2015 - Yoichi Funabashi
Former Editor-in-Chief, The Asahi Shimbun
Announcement | Summary article | Transcript

2014 - Jacob Schlesinger
Senior Asia Economics Correspondent and Central Banks Editors - Asia, the Wall Street Journal
Announcement | Summary article | V ideo

2013 - Aung Zaw
Founder and Editor, The Irrawaddy
Announcement | Summary article and video

2012 - Barbara Demick
Beijing Bureau Chief, The Los Angeles Times
Announcement | Audio | Video

2011 - Caixin Media
Independent Beijing-based media company
Announcement | Summary article

2010 - Barbara Crossette
Former Foreign Correspondent, The New York Times
Announcement | Audio | Video

2009 - Seth Mydans
Southeast Asia Correspondent, The New York Times and the International Herald Tribune
Audio

2008 - Ian Buruma
Writer and the Henry R. Luce Professor of Democracy, Human Rights, and Journalism, Bard College
Award Acceptance Speech Audio | Panel Discussion Audio

2007 - John Pomfret
Former Beijing Bureau Chief, The Washington Post
Announcement

2006 - Melinda Liu
Beijing Bureau Chief, Newsweek
Audio

2005 - Nayan Chanda
Former Editor and Correspondent, the Far Eastern Economic Review

2004 - Donald Oberdorfer
Former Diplomatic Correspondent, The Washington Post

2003 - Orville Schell
Journalist and former Dean, School of Journalism, University of California, Berkeley

2002 - Stanley Karnow
Former foreign correspondent and Pulitzer-prize-winning historian

Journalism Across Asia

To mark the fifteenth anniversary of the Shorenstein Journalism Award, our honorees shared reflections on what the future holds for journalism in and about Asia.

History of the Shorenstein Journalism Award

The Shorenstein Journalism Award was established in 2002 and named after Mr. Walter H. Shorenstein, a visionary businessman, philanthropist, and activist who endowed two institutions that are focused respectively on Asia and on the press: the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, and the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

In its first years, the award was a joint effort of the two centers. It was originally designed to honor distinguished journalists at leading American media for their work on the Asia-Pacific. In 2010, Walter Shorenstein passed away and Stanford’s Shorenstein APARC became the sole sponsor of the award. The decision to continue the award was made not only to honor Mr. Shorenstein’s legacy but also to acknowledge the necessity of free and vibrant media for the future of U.S.-Asia relations.

Shorenstein APARC then re-envisioned the award in recognition of the fact that the Asia-Pacific region had served as a crucible for the role of the press in democratization in places such as South Korea, Taiwan, India, Pakistan, and Indonesia. In 2011, the scope of the award was broadened to include distinguished journalists who are from and work in the Asia-Pacific at the forefront of the battle for press freedom, and who have helped advance mutual understanding between their home countries and the United States. It was also decided that, in addition to individuals, organizations would be eligible for the award.

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