Asia Society Announces Six Finalists for Osborn Elliott Journalism Prize
NEW YORK, March 19, 2012 — The Asia Society is pleased to announce that six outstanding pieces of reporting on Asia have been selected as finalists for the Osborn Elliott Prize for Excellence in Journalism on Asia. A winner from among these six finalists will be announced in early April. The award — a $10,000 cash prize — will be presented at an evening program on May 21, 2012 at Asia Society in New York.
The six finalists are:
- Agence France-Presse: Hla Hla Htay, Amelie Bottollier-Depois, Didier Lauras, Daniel Rook, Rachel O'Brien, and Kelly Macnamara for selected coverage of Myanmar/Burma including Aung San Suu Kyi sees 'positive' change in Myanmar," "Myanmar wants 'regular relationship' with US: official," and "Myanmar's muted press strives for a louder voice."
- Fast Company: April Rabkin for three stories on China: "The Socialist Networks," "Follow the Billionaire," and "The People's Education Army."
- Newsweek / The Daily Beast: Ron Moreau and Sami Yousafzai for three stories on Afghanistan: "The Taliban After Bin Laden," "You Have the Watches, We Have the Time," and "War Without End."
- Tehelka: Rohini Mohan for "Coastal Wars: A Storm Foretold" and "The Trap of the Empty Net."
- Thomson Reuters: Ryan Vlastelica, Daniel Bases, Clare Baldwin, Mark Bendeich, David Gaffen, Carlyn Kolker, Rachel Armstrong, Allison Martell, Martin Howell, Jim Impoco, Claudia Parsons, and Michael Williams for a series including “The ‘Shorts’ Who Popped a China Bubble" and "Chinese Stock Scams are the Latest U.S. Import" [video].
- The Washington Post: Andrew Higgins for the series "Power Grab: China's Quest for Energy."
To read the stories, visit AsiaSociety.org/OzPrize
Jury Chairman Norman Pearlstine, Chief Content Officer at Bloomberg and former Editor-in-Chief of Time Inc., praised the quality and breadth of applications from across Asia and the United States. “These six Oz prize finalists were chosen from a diverse group of publications covering an equally diverse range of topics,” he said. “This demonstrates that when newsrooms and news outlets both in the United States and in Asia devote reporting resources the region, the result can be journalistic excellence. This is true whether in dangerous places, such as Afghanistan, in political environments undergoing rapid transformations such as Myanmar (Burma), or the booming economies of China and India where accelerating development is disrupting traditional societies.”
About the Osborn Elliott Prize for Excellence in Journalism on Asia
The “Oz Prize” honors the late Osborn Elliott, legendary journalist, author and former editor-in-chief of Newsweek. Elliott was a leading figure in the field of journalism who became one of the earliest practitioners of “civic journalism”—the deliberate focusing of the journalistic enterprise on urgent issues of public policy. The Oz Prize is awarded annually for the best example of journalism about Asia in print or online during the calendar year.
Previous winners have included Keith Bradsher of The New York Times (2010), a team of writers from the International Herald Tribune (2009), Shai Oster of The Wall Street Journal (2008), Evan Osnos of the Chicago Tribune (2007), Barbara Demick of the Los Angeles Times and Matthew McAllester of Newsday (2006), Philip P. Pan ofThe Washington Post (2005), John Pomfret of The Washington Post (2004) and Elisabeth Rosenthal of The New York Times (2003).
In addition to Mr. Pearlstine, the Oz Prize jury includes Carroll Bogert, Associate Director for Human Rights Watch; Barbara Crossette, UN Correspondent, The Nation; Dorinda Elliott, Deputy Editor, Special Projects, Condé Nast Traveler; Michael Elliott, President and CEO, ONE foundation and former Deputy Managing Editor, TIME; Chrystia Freeland, Global Editor-in-Chief, Reuters; Pramit Pal Chaudhuri, Senior Editor, Hindustan Times; Carla Anne Robbins, Deputy Editorial Page Editor, The New York Times; and Gillian Tett, U.S. Managing Editor, Financial Times.
Contact: Elaine Merguerian
(212) 327-9271
[email protected]