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 Updates

We are delighted to share that The New York Times’ Chief China Correspondent Chris Buckley has won the 2024 Shorenstein Journalism Award for his exemplary reporting on China and Taiwan. He will receive the award at Stanford in October 2024.

Read the award announcement

About the Shorenstein Journalism Award

The Shorenstein Journalism Award, which carries a cash prize of US $10,000, recognizes outstanding journalists who have spent their careers helping audiences around the world understand the complexities of the Asia-Pacific region, defined broadly to include Northeast, Southeast, South, and Central Asia and Australasia. Award recipients are veteran journalists with a distinguished body of work. News organizations are also eligible for the award.

The award is sponsored and presented by the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) at Stanford University. It honors the legacy of the Center’s benefactor, Mr. Walter H. Shorenstein, and his twin passions for promoting excellence in journalism and understanding of Asia. It also symbolizes the Center’s commitment to 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 mostly been conveyed through American news media and recipients whose work has mostly been conveyed through news media in one or more parts of the Asia-Pacific region. Included among the latter candidates are journalists who are from the region and work there, and who, in addition to their recognized excellence, may have helped defend and encourage free media in one or more countries in the 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

The Shorenstein Journalism Award has closed for the 2024 cycle. It will reopen for the 2025 cycle in December 2024.

Visit the nomination entry page

2023 Shorenstein Journalism Award honors The Caravan, India's premier long-form journalism magazine of politics and culture.

Hartosh Singh Bal, The Caravan's executive editor, joins a panel of experts to analyze the troubling state of India's democracy and press freedom.

Award Winners

Emily Feng, 2022 Winner

Emily Feng speaking at the 2022 Shorenstein Journalism Award.

Tom Wright, 2020 Winner

APARC's 2020 Journalism Award winner Tom Wright speaking at the virtual award ceremony

Maria Ressa, 2019 Winner

Anna Fifield, 2018 Winner

Anna Fifield speaking at a panel discussion.

Siddharth Varadarajan, 2017 Winner

Siddharth Varadarajan speaking on a panel, seated next to Nayan Chanda.

Complete List of Winners

2024 - Chris Buckley
Chief China Correspondent, The New York Times
Announcement

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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