STANFORD, Calif.-Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center has named Los Angeles Times Beijing bureau chief Barbara Demick winner of the 2012 Shorenstein Journalism Award. Demick was selected for her innovative and extraordinarily sensitive reporting on Northeast Asia over the past decade.

The Shorenstein Journalism Award was launched in 2002 to recognize the contributions of Western journalists in deepening our understanding of Asia. In 2011, the scope of the award was broadened to encompass Asian journalists who are at the forefront of the battle for press freedom in Asia, who have paved the way in constructing a new role for the media, and who have aided the growth of mutual understanding between Asia and the United States. Continuing as an annual tradition, the Shorenstein Journalism Award now alternates between recipients from the West, who have mainly addressed an American audience, and recipients from Asia.

Barbara Demick joined the Los Angeles Times in 2001 and has served as its Beijing bureau chief since 2008. Her reporting from China has focused on human trafficking, corruption, and minorities, as well as ongoing coverage of neighboring North Korea. Demick is the author of two books: Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea and Logavina Street: Life and Death in a Sarajevo Neighborhood. Her work has won awards from the Asia Society, the Overseas Press Club, and the American Academy of Diplomacy, among others.

Nothing to Envy began as a series of articles published during Demick's tenure as the inaugural Los Angeles Times bureau chief in Korea. Centering on the lives of six North Korean defectors from the northeastern port city of Chongjin, it has been translated into more than 20 languages. The New York Review of Books has called Nothing to Envy “a tour de force of meticulous reporting,” and the Wall Street Journal has hailed it as “a deeply moving book.” It recently won the International Book Award on Human Rights.

Before joining the Los Angeles Times, Demick worked for the Philadelphia Inquirer as a foreign correspondent in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Her reporting on Sarajevo won the George Polk Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Award, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting.

Demick is a graduate of Yale and taught a seminar on coverage of repressive regimes at Princeton University. She currently lives in Beijing with her son Nicholas.

On February 11, 2013, Demick will visit Stanford University to take part in a lunchtime panel discussion about different ways of viewing North Korea, from a journalistic perspective and that of aid workers and authors who draw on the work of journalists reporting on North Korea. Demick will receive the award at a dinner ceremony where she will deliver a talk on her work in Asia.

About the Award

The Shorenstein Journalism Award, which carries a cash prize of $10,000, honors a journalist not only for a distinguished body of work, but also for the particular way that work has helped American readers to understand the complexities of Asia. The award, established in 2002, was named after Walter H. Shorenstein, the philanthropist, activist, and businessman 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 at Stanford University, and the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

The award was originally designed to honor distinguished American journalists for their work on Asia, including veteran correspondents for leading American media such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, Newsweek, NBC News, PBS, and the Wall Street Journal. The first group of awardees included: Stanley Karnow (2002), Orville Schell (2003), Don Oberdorfer (2004), Nayan Chanda (2005), Melinda Liu (2006), John Pomfret (2007), Ian Buruma (2008), Seth Mydans (2009), and Barbara Crossette (2010).

In 2011, Shorenstein APARC re-envisioned the award to encompass distinguished Asian journalists who are at the forefront of the battle for press freedom in Asia and who have paved the way in constructing a new role for the media, including the growth of social media and Internet-based journalism. It also seeks to identify those Asian journalists who, from that side of the Pacific Ocean, have aided the growth of mutual understanding between Asia and the United States. Independent, pioneering Chinese media company Caixin was the first Asian recipient of the Shorenstein Journalism Award.

The Shorenstein Journalism Award not only to honors the legacy of Walter Shorenstein and his twin passions for Asia and the press, but also promotes the necessity of a free and vibrant media for the future of relations between Asia and the United States. A free press—both in its traditional aspect and also as an outgrowth of Internet social media—remains the essential catalyst for the growth of democratic freedom, as recent events in the Middle East have shown.

Continuing as an annual tradition, the Shorenstein Journalism Award now alternates between recipients from the West, who have mainly addressed an American audience, and recipients from Asia. The award’s distinguished jury members include:

Ian Buruma, the Henry R. Luce Professor of Democracy, Human Rights, and Journalism at Bard College, is a noted Asia expert who frequently contributes to publications including the New York Times Magazine, the New York Review of Books, and the New Yorker. He is a recipient of the Shorenstein Journalism Award and the international Erasmus Prize (both in 2008).

Nayan Chanda, director of publications at the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization and editor of YaleGlobal Online Magazine, served for nearly 30 years as editor, editor-at-large, and correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review. He was honored with the Shorenstein Journalism Award in 2005.

Susan Chira, assistant managing editor for news and former foreign editor of the New York Times, has extensive Asia experience, including serving as Japan correspondent for the Times in the 1980s. During her long tenure as foreign editor, the Times twice won the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting (2009 and 2007).

Donald K. Emmerson, a well-respected Indonesia scholar, serves as director of Shorenstein APARC’s Southeast Asia Forum and as a research fellow for the prestigious National Asia Research Program (NARP). Frequently cited in the international media, Emmerson also contributes op-eds to leading publications such as the Asia Times.

Orville Schell is the Arthur Ross Director at the Asia Society of New York's Center on U.S.-China Relations, and is also a former jury member for the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting. He has written extensively on China, and was awarded the 1997 George Peabody Award for producing the groundbreaking documentary the Gate of Heavenly Peace. He received the Shorenstein Journalism Award in 2003.

Daniel C. Sneider serves as the associate director for research at Shorenstein APARC and also as a NARP research associate. He frequently contributes articles to publications such as Foreign Policy, Asia Policy, and Slate and had three decades of experience as a foreign correspondent and editor for publications including the Christian Science Monitor and the San Jose Mercury News. 

President Obama and Mitt Romney meet for their third debate to discuss foreign policy on Monday, when moderator Bob Schieffer is sure to ask them about last month's terrorist attack in Libya and the nuclear capabilities of Iran.

In anticipation of the final match between the presidential candidates, researchers from five centers at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies ask the additional questions they want answered and explain what voters should keep in mind.

What can we learn from the Arab Spring about how to balance our values and our interests when people in authoritarian regimes rise up to demand freedom?  

What to listen for: First, the candidates should address whether they believe the U.S. has a moral obligation to support other peoples’ aspirations for freedom and democracy. Second, they need to say how we should respond when longtime allies like Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak confront movements for democratic change.

And that leads to more specific questions pertaining to Arab states that the candidates need to answer: What price have we paid in terms of our moral standing in the region by tacitly accepting the savage repression by the monarchy in Bahrain of that country's movement for democracy and human rights?  How much would they risk in terms of our strategic relationship with Bahrain and Saudi Arabia by denouncing and seeking to restrain this repression? What human rights and humanitarian obligations do we have in the Syrian crisis?  And do we have a national interest in taking more concrete steps to assist the Syrian resistance?  On the other hand, how can we assist the resistance in a way that does not empower Islamist extremists or draw us into another regional war?  

Look for how the candidates will wrestle with difficult trade-offs, and whether either will rise above the partisan debate to recognize the enduring bipartisan commitment in the Congress to supporting democratic development abroad.  And watch for some sign of where they stand on the spectrum between “idealism” and “realism” in American foreign policy.  Will they see that pressing Arab states to move in the direction of democracy, and supporting other efforts around the world to build and sustain democracy, is positioning the United States on “the right side of history”?

~Larry Diamond, director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law

What do you consider to be the greatest threats our country faces, and how would you address them in an environment of profound partisan divisions and tightly constrained budgets? 

What to listen for: History teaches that some of the most effective presidential administrations understand America's external challenges but also recognize the interdependence between America's place in the world and its domestic situation.

Accordingly, Americans should expect their president to be deeply knowledgeable about the United States and its larger global context, but also possessed of the vision and determination to build the country's domestic strength.

The president should understand the threats posed by nuclear proliferation and terrorist organizations. The president should be ready to lead in managing the complex risks Americans face from potential pandemics, global warming, possible cyber attacks on a vulnerable infrastructure, and failing states.

Just as important, the president needs to be capable of leading an often-polarized legislative process and effectively addressing fiscal challenges such as the looming sequestration of budgets for the Department of Defense and other key agencies. The president needs to recognize that America's place in the world is at risk when the vast bulk of middle class students are performing at levels comparable to students in Estonia, Latvia and Bulgaria, and needs to be capable of engaging American citizens fully in addressing these shared domestic and international challenges.

~Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation

Should our government help American farmers cope with climate impacts on food production, and should this assistance be extended to other countries – particularly poor countries – whose food production is also threatened by climate variability and climate change?

What to listen for: Most representatives in Congress would like to eliminate government handouts, and many would also like to turn away from any discussion of climate change. Yet this year, U.S. taxpayers are set to pay up to $20 billion to farmers for crop insurance after extreme drought and heat conditions damaged yields in the Midwest.

With the 2012 farm bill stalled in Congress, the candidates need to be clear about whether they support government subsidized crop insurance for American farmers. They should also articulate their views on climate threats to food production in the U.S. and abroad.

Without a substantial crop insurance program, American farmers will face serious risks of income losses and loan defaults. And without foreign assistance for climate adaptation, the number of people going hungry could well exceed 15 percent of the world's population. 

~Rosamond L. Naylor, director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment

What is your vision for the United States’ future relationship with Europe? 

What to listen for: Between the end of World War II and the end of the Cold War, it was the United States and Europe that ensured world peace. But in recent years, it seems that “Europe” and “European” have become pejoratives in American political discourse. There’s been an uneasiness over whether we’re still friends and whether we still need each other. But of course we do.

Europe and the European Union share with the United States of America the most fundamental values, such as individual freedom, freedom of speech, freedom to live and work where you choose. There’s a shared respect of basic human rights. There are big differences with the Chinese, and big differences with the Russians. When you look around, it’s really the U.S. and Europe together with robust democracies such as Canada and Australia that have the strongest sense of shared values.

So the candidates should talk about what they would do as president to make sure those values are preserved and protected and how they would make the cooperation between the U.S. and Europe more effective and substantive as the world is confronting so many challenges like international terrorism, cyber security threats, human rights abuses, underdevelopment and bad governance.

~Amir Eshel, director of The Europe Center

Historical and territorial issues are bedeviling relations in East Asia, particularly among Japan, China, South Korea, and Southeast Asian countries. What should the United States do to try to reduce tensions and resolve these issues?

What to listen for: Far from easing as time passes, unresolved historical, territorial, and maritime issues in East Asia have worsened over the past few years. There have been naval clashes, major demonstrations, assaults on individuals, economic boycotts, and harsh diplomatic exchanges. If the present trend continues, military clashes – possibly involving American allies – are possible.

All of the issues are rooted in history. Many stem from Imperial Japan’s aggression a century ago, and some derive from China’s more assertive behavior toward its neighbors as it continues its dramatic economic and military growth. But almost all of problems are related in some way or another to decisions that the United States took—or did not take—in its leadership of the postwar settlement with Japan.

The United States’ response to the worsening situation so far has been to declare a strategic “rebalancing” toward East Asia, aimed largely at maintaining its military presence in the region during a time of increasing fiscal constraint at home. Meanwhile, the historic roots of the controversies go unaddressed.

The United States should no longer assume that the regional tensions will ease by themselves and rely on its military presence to manage the situation. It should conduct a major policy review, aimed at using its influence creatively and to the maximum to resolve the historical issues that threaten peace in the present day.

~David Straub, associate director of the Korea Studies Program at the Walter H. Shorentein Asia-Pacific Research Center

Compiled by Adam Gorlick.