Contact: Patricia Kranz, executive director, Overseas Press Club of America
(917) 971-0746 – patricia@opcofamerica.org
83rd Annual Overseas Press Club Awards Recognize the Finest International Reporting in 22 Categories; The New York Times Tops Winners for the Fourth Straight Year; Afghanistan’s Collapse and Military Violence are Recurring Themes; President’s Award Shared by Staff of Hong Kong’s Apple Daily
NEW YORK, March 18, 2022 – Afghanistan’s collapse, rising military violence and the ongoing plight of migrants emerged as the leading storylines among winners of the 83rd Annual Overseas Press Club Awards.
America’s oldest journalist association dedicated to international news announced the winners in its 22 award categories. They will be honored April 21 at a dinner in New York. The OPC President’s Award will honor the staff of Apple Daily, which was forced to cease operations in 2021 by Hong Kong authorities.
“This year’s winners offer a breathtaking display of what global journalists do – day in and day out,” said OPC President Paula Dwyer.
“They exposed the tragic cost of conflict on children and probed the exploitation of vulnerable migrant workers. They uncovered the hidden assets of government officials in offshore havens and documented the destruction of Brazil’s rainforests. They revealed the dangers facing climate migrants and painstakingly tallied the hidden deaths from America’s drone warfare. None of this was easy, some was accomplished at great personal risk, and all of it is truly impressive.”
Four OPC awards relate to Afghanistan’s collapse, particularly the humanitarian crisis following the Taliban takeover. Four more awards chronicled the brutal consequences of armed conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, in addition to the return of military rule in Myanmar. Three awards were given to stories detailing the suffering of migrants in Belarus, Libya and Guatemala.
For the fourth consecutive year, The New York Times led all media outlets by winning four OPC awards. The paper has topped OPC winners in seven of the last eight years.
The Times earned three awards via team coverage, capturing the Hal Boyle Award for staff reporting on the collapse of Afghanistan, the Roy Rowan Award for an investigative story tabulating civilian casualties from remote U.S. bombings in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, and the Whitman Bassow Award for a global effort to document the human and environmental costs of extracting minerals needed in the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy. The Times also won for Dan Balilty’s feature photography essay on the ultra-Orthodox community in Jerusalem dealing with Covid.
Getty Images won the prestigious Robert Capa Gold Medal for photography requiring exceptional courage. The award went to a photographer who must remain anonymous as protection against retaliation. The winner documented the brutal military violence and unrest in Myanmar. Getty also won the Olivier Rebbot Award for images by freelance photographer Fatima Shbair, conveying the emotional devastation of war on Palestinian families.
Getty was one of four media outlets to pick up two awards. Dual winners also included The Washington Post, The New Yorker and VICE News. Individually, Anand Gopal of The New Yorker won his fourth OPC award in the last six years for a long-form feature on rural Afghan women living under Taliban rule.
Six journalists won their second OPC award, including Sandy Tolan and Michael Montgomery, who contributed to a joint win by Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting, PRX and Mother Jones. The team unearthed the exploitative labor practices of sugar producer Central Romana Corp. Tolan and Montgomery last won in 1998 and 2000, respectively.
Second-time OPC winners also included Morgan Till and Sara Just of PBS NewsHour, who along with Jane Ferguson won the Peter Jennings Award for the network’s comprehensive series on the fall of Afghanistan and the turbulent aftermath. Isobel Yeung of VICE News won for a second straight year, taking the Edward R. Murrow Award for Yemen’s Children of War.
Outlets winning their first OPC award include The Atavist Magazine, Las Vegas Review-Journal and Reveal.
The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting provided financial support to two OPC winning entries as part of its mission to raise awareness of underreported global stories. They include the aforementioned winners from PBS NewsHour and Reveal.
The OPC also awarded runner-up citations in 21 of the 22 award categories. The Washington Post won three citations. Al Jazeera, Bloomberg, FRONTLINE PBS, VICE and The Wall Street Journal all earned two citations.
The keynote address at the April 21 dinner will be delivered by Lulu Garcia-Navarro of The New York Times. Garcia-Navarro anchors the Times Opinion podcast and won the OPC’s Lowell Thomas Award in 2011.
The OPC Press Freedom Candle will honor journalists working in Ukraine and Belarus, including those killed or injured as they reported on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The OPC Awards judging process, which is led by OPC board member Scott Kraft, involves more than 100 jury members from across the profession with deep experience in international journalism.
Please contact the OPC’s Patricia Kranz at patricia@opcofamerica.org or (917) 971-0746 if you have additional questions.
For a full list of award winners, see below. To see citation (runner-up) winners, click on this link. A list of all our awards judges is posted here.
OPC Awards (for work in 2021)
Newspapers, News Services, Print or Digital
THE HAL BOYLE AWARD
Best newspaper, news service or digital reporting from abroad
Sponsor: Norman Pearlstine in memory of Jerry Flint
The New York Times Staff
Judges: The judges were particularly impressed with the Times’s ability to bring 20 years of expertise in Afghanistan to bear at the most crucial time – a commitment that enabled the organization to get at the roots of the Afghanistan collapse even before most in the US government realized what was afoot.
THE BOB CONSIDINE AWARD
Best newspaper, news service or digital interpretation of international affairs
Sponsor: William J. Holstein and Rita Sevell
Neil Munshi
Financial Times
“The Consequences and Drivers of Conflict in West and Central Africa”
Judges: Munshi’s series for the Financial Times combined the best of explanatory writing with meticulous on-the-ground reporting from a sorely under-covered part of the world.
THE ED CUNNINGHAM AWARD
Best magazine-style, long-form narrative feature in print or digital on an international story
Sponsor: Michael S. Serrill
Anand Gopal
The New Yorker
Judges: A brave and beautifully wrought tale, written with clarity and humanity, that challenges readers to think more broadly about the complicated interlacing of war and women’s rights.
THE MALCOLM FORBES AWARD
Best international business news reporting in newspapers, news services, magazines or digital
Sponsor: Forbes Magazine
International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, The Washington Post, Miami Herald and nearly 150 media partners
Judges: Another tour de force by the ICIJ, “The Pandora Papers” brought together journalists from dozens of news organizations to rummage through a treasure trove of more than 11 million leaked documents showing how money and power operate in the 21st century.
THE MADELINE DANE ROSS AWARD
Best international reporting in the print medium or digital showing a concern
for the human condition
Sponsor: Linda Fasulo
Annalise Jolley and Zahara Gomez Lucini
Atavist Magazine
Judges: A visceral journey through the interminable sorrow and astonishing resilience of Mexican women who dig for their missing relatives and confront loss through lovingly prepared meals.
THE KIM WALL AWARD
Best story or series of stories on international affairs using creative and dynamic digital storytelling techniques
Sponsor: Paula Dwyer
Max Bearak, Dylan Moriarty and Júlia Ledur
The Washington Post
Judges: Beautiful interplay of writing, photography, video, and interactive data graphics that gives immediacy and urgency to an overlooked subject without falling into easy tropes about Africa. The stories and presentation were unique, ambitious, and inspiring in scope.
TV, Video, Radio or Podcast
THE LOWELL THOMAS AWARD
Best radio, audio, or podcast coverage of international affairs
Sponsor: Deborah Amos
Lauren Frayer, Sushmita Pathak, Didrik Schanche and Nishant Dahiya
National Public Radio (NPR)
“India’s Spring 2021 Covid Wave”
Judges: “Despite themselves living under extraordinary lockdown conditions, the NPR journalists regularly delivered deep, nuanced stories, told through the voices of ordinary Indians and the health care professionals seeking to help them.”
THE DAVID KAPLAN AWARD
Best TV or video spot news reporting from abroad
Sponsor: ABC News
Matthew Chance, Zahra Ullah and Jeffrey Kehl
CNN
“Belarus — Inside a Manufactured Migrant Crisis”
Judges: The CNN team led by correspondent Matthew Chance brought us into the midst of a simmering migrant crisis fueled by Belarus and its autocratic leader, Alexander Lukashenko, that quickly boiled over into a full-scale humanitarian emergency and a dramatic assault on Europe’s borders.
THE EDWARD R. MURROW AWARD
Best TV, video or documentary interpretation of international affairs with a run time up to 30 minutes
Sponsor: CBS News
Isobel Yeung, Amel Guettatfi, Javier Manzano and Ahmed Baidar
VICE News
Judges: VICE captures a complex, brutal war with deep humanity and moving storytelling. In a country where journalists face major obstacles, the team conveys the tragic cost of the conflict in just 18 minutes, portraying characters with insightful understanding.
THE PETER JENNINGS AWARD
Best TV, video or documentary about international affairs with a run time over 30 minutes
Sponsor: The Jennings Family
Jane Ferguson, Sara Just, Morgan Till, Emily Kassie and Zach Fannin
PBS NewsHour, with support from the Pulitzer Center
Judges: In years to come, students of history will be able to look back at these PBS NewsHour segments from Afghanistan by Jane Ferguson and team to understand what happened in the final year of America’s longest war. Throughout 2021, as most Americans’ attention had turned away, the team returned again and again to capture the final arc of the story.
THE MORTON FRANK AWARD
Best international business news reporting in TV, video, radio, audio or podcast
Sponsor: Marc Lemcke
Sandy Tolan, Euclides Cordero Nuel and Michael Montgomery
Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting, PRX and Mother Jones, with support from the Pulitzer Center
“The Bitter Work Behind Sugar”
Judges: This comprehensive investigation by Sandy Tolan and Euclides Cordero Nuel took listeners deep into the sugar cane harvesting camps manned by Haitian immigrants in the Dominican Republic. The reporting, which has prompted scrutiny from Congress and the Department of Labor, documented workers enduring $4 a day wages, staggering debt, substandard housing and woeful medical care while enhancing Central Romana Corp.’s profitability.
THE DAVID A. ANDELMAN AND PAMELA TITLE AWARD
Best international TV, video, radio, audio or podcast reporting showing a concern for the human condition
Sponsor: David A. Andelman and Pamela Title
David Mora, Jika Gonzalez, Jose Flores and Craig Thomson
VICE News Tonight
Judges: “After the Flood” portrays global climate migration at its most intimate level, documenting migration and its devastating intersection with violence and organized crime. The result is a powerful and intimate portrayal of the real-life consequences of climate change.
Any Medium
THE ROBERT SPIERS BENJAMIN AWARD
Best reporting in any medium on Latin America
Sponsor: Laurie Hays
Jake Spring, Stephen Eisenhammer, Ueslei Marcelino and Reuters colleagues
Reuters
Judges: The seven-part package not only exposed Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s signature response to destruction of the Amazon rainforest – sending in the army – as a costly failure. It also documented his work to incapacitate the country’s system for fining environmental offenders. The Reuters team traveled to far-flung – and sometimes risky – corners of the rainforest to paint a comprehensive portrait of illegal deforestation and its far-reaching consequences
THE ROY ROWAN AWARD
Best investigative reporting in any medium on an international story
Sponsor: Marcus Rowan
The New York Times staff
The New York Times
Judges: A powerful investigation that revealed how a highly touted and ostensibly sophisticated remote warfare system developed by the Pentagon was riddled with flaws and beset by faulty decision-making, leading to the bombing deaths of innocent civilians in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.
THE FLORA LEWIS AWARD
Best commentary in any medium on international news
Sponsor: Deidre Depke and Ciro Scotti
Rana Ayyub
The Washington Post
Judges: At grave personal risk, Rana Ayyub of The Washington Post has called out Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s systematic persecution of the Muslim minority. As one juror noted, “Her stories are truly frightening, and India’s slide into religious nationalism does not get nearly enough attention.”
THE WHITMAN BASSOW AWARD
Best reporting in any medium on international environmental issues
Sponsor: Robert Serio
The New York Times staff
The New York Times
Judges: The disturbing series showed how a key element of the so-called clean energy revolution – the push to phase out gas-guzzling cars and trucks – relies in part on child labor, government corruption and deadly pollution in some of the world’s poorest countries.
THE JOE AND LAURIE DINE AWARD
Best international reporting in any medium dealing with human rights
Sponsor: Philip Dine
Ian Urbina
The New Yorker, in collaboration with the Outlaw Ocean Project
“The Secretive Prisons That Keep Migrants Out of Europe”
Judges: At great personal risk, Ian Urbina exposed the horrors of Libyan detention camps where African migrants are held as they attempt to travel to Europe. Through a tacit and unsavory agreement, the European Union essentially pays Libya to catch and imprison the migrants so that Europe does not have to face problems on their borders.
Photography
THE ROBERT CAPA GOLD MEDAL AWARD
Best photographic reporting from abroad requiring exceptional courage and enterprise published in any medium
Sponsor: Getty Images
Anonymous
Getty Images
Judges: Despite facing great risk as a member of the press, this photographer remained immersed in Yangon as the junta cut lines of communication to the outside world, and killed and arrested civilians protesting the return of military rule.
THE OLIVIER REBBOT AWARD
Best photographic news reporting from abroad in any medium
Sponsor: David Ake
Fatima Shbair
Getty Images
“11 Days of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict in Gaza”
Judges: Shbair’s unflinching reportage forms an important historical record of the physical, emotional, cultural, and psychological devastation of war for Palestinian families and communities in Gaza.
THE FEATURE PHOTOGRAPHY AWARD
Best feature photography on an international theme published in any medium
Sponsor: Sony Electronics Inc.
Dan Balilty
The New York Times
“Inside Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Communities During Covid”
Judges: Balilty’s images portray moments of tenderness and sorrow with empathy and respect. It’s a truly immersive essay on one of the year’s most difficult topics.
Books
THE CORNELIUS RYAN AWARD
Best non-fiction book on international affairs
Sponsor: Friends of Richard Threlkeld
Joe Parkinson and Drew Hinshaw
HarperCollins
Bring Back Our Girls: The Untold Story of the Global Search for Nigeria’s Missing Schoolgirls
Judges: This book highlights the crushing repression of women and girls in parts of the developing world and the resilience with which they pursue their hopes. The work is bolstered by extensive field reporting, by the reporters’ expertise in African politics and culture, and by the diary of one survivor.
Cartoons
THE BEST CARTOON AWARD
Best print or digital graphic journalism, including cartoons, on international affairs
Sponsor: Mercedes-Benz
Las Vegas Review-Journal
Judges: Michael Ramirez masterly employs the full arsenal available to the visual satirist. It is rare to find a cartoonist who deftly creates both dark moods and light humor with such skill and intelligence. His work effectively eviscerates sacred cows and makes us laugh, even as we sometimes grumble.
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