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

2026 Award Honors Shibani Mahtani

October 20 @ noon PT | Hear from Mahtani as she delivers keynote remarks on attacks against the free press and democratic backsliding in Southeast Asia, and joins an expert panel discussion.

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. An annual tradition, the award is sponsored and presented by Stanford University's Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC). Award recipients are experienced journalists with a distinguished body of work or established news organizations that publish regularly and adhere to the highest standards of journalistic integrity.

The Shorenstein Journalism Award alternates annually between recognizing journalists and news outlets from two distinct media categories: 1) Western English-speaking media based in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, and 2) Asia-Pacific media based in Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, and the Pacific Islands. This rotation allows the award to highlight outstanding Asia reporting in global outlets while also honoring journalists and outlets working within the region's own diverse and dynamic media landscapes. (This marks a 2026 change expanding the eligibility criterion under the former category in the rotation from U.S. news media to include Western English-speaking media.)

In years when the award recognizes work appearing primarily in Asia-Pacific media, the Shorenstein Award Committee prioritizes candidates who pair recognized excellence with a record of defending press freedom and encouraging free media in one or more countries of the Asia-Pacific region.

Each year, the winner is announced in the spring quarter and celebrated at a public ceremony held at Stanford University in the autumn quarter.

The award 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 against independent news media, fact-based truth, and those who tell it.

Award Selection Committee

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

William Dobson, Co-Editor, Journal of Democracy

Anna Fifield, Journalist and Foreign Affairs Analyst; Non-Resident Fellow, Center for Strategic and International Studies; 2018 Shorenstein Journalism Award Winner

James Hamilton, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, Hearst Professor of Communication, and Director of the Stanford Journalism Program, Stanford University

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

Raju Narisetti, Partner & Global Leader, McKinsey Global Publishing, McKinsey & Company

Award Nominations

Nominations for the 2026 Shorenstein Journalism Award have closed. The 2027 cycle will open for nominations in December 2026.

2025 Shorenstein Journalism Award: Netra News' Tasneem Khalil on Defending Democracy in Bangladesh

Netra News' founding Editor-in-Chief Tasneem Khalil discusses the outlet's mission, “To Comfort the Afflicted," and joins a conversation with experts William Dobson, James Hamilton, and Elora Shehabuddin.

Recent Award Winners

Netra News and Tasneem Khalil, 2025 Winners

Tasneem Khalil delivers remarks at a lectern.

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

Complete List of Winners

2026 - Shibani Mahtani
Singapore-based investigative journalist
2026 award announcement | October 20, 2026 award ceremony registration >

2025 - Netra News
Bangladesh's premier independent media outlet
2025 award announcement | 2025 award ceremony recap and video

2024 - Chris Buckley
Chief China Correspondent, The New York Times
2024 award announcement | 2024 award ceremony recap and video

2023 - The Caravan
India's premier magazine of long-form journalism
2023 award announcement | 2023 award ceremony recap and video

2022 - Emily Feng
Beijing Correspondent, NPR
2022 award announcement | 2022 award ceremony recap and video

2021 - Swe Win
Editor-in-Chief, Myanmar Now
2021 award announcement | 2021 award ceremony recap and video

2020 - Tom Wright
Author, journalist, and speaker
2020 award announcement | 2020 award ceremony recap and video

2019 - Maria Ressa
CEO and Executive Editor, Rappler
2019 award announcement | 2019 award ceremony recap and video

2018 - Anna Fifield
Beijing Bureau Chief, The Washington Post
2018 award announcement | 2018 award ceremony recap and video

2017 - Siddharth Varadarajan
Founder and Editor, The Wire
2017 award announcement | 2017 award ceremony recap 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
2016 award announcement | 2016 award ceremony recap | 2016 event video recording

2015 - Yoichi Funabashi
Former Editor-in-Chief, The Asahi Shimbun
2015 award announcement | 2015 award ceremony recap | Transcript

2014 - Jacob Schlesinger
Senior Asia Economics Correspondent and Central Banks Editor – Asia, The Wall Street Journal
2014 award announcement | 2014 award ceremony recap | 2014 video

2013 - Aung Zaw
Founder and Editor, The Irrawaddy
2013 award announcement | 2013 award ceremony recap and video

2012 - Barbara Demick
Beijing Bureau Chief, The Los Angeles Times
2012 award announcement | 2012 award ceremony audio | 2012 event video

2011 - Caixin Media
Independent Beijing-based media company
2011 award announcement | 2011 award ceremony recap

2010 - Barbara Crossette
Former Foreign Correspondent, The New York Times
2010 award announcement | 2010 award ceremony audio | 2010 event video

2009 - Seth Mydans
Southeast Asia Correspondent, The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune
2009 award ceremony audio

2008 - Ian Buruma
Writer and the Henry R. Luce Professor of Democracy, Human Rights, and Journalism, Bard College
2008 award acceptance speech audio | 2008 award panel discussion audio

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

2006 - Melinda Liu
Beijing Bureau Chief, Newsweek
2006 award ceremony 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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