Best daily newspaper or wire service reporting from abroad
Award Year: 1986
Award Name: The Hal Boyle Award 1986
Recipient: Serge Schmemann
Affiliation: The New York Times
Honored Work: “Articles on the Soviet Union”
As Schmemann was concluding seven years as The Times’s bureau chief in Moscow, Mikhail Gorbachev proposed startling reforms – and in an unaccustomed atmosphere of “glasnost,” or openness. Schmemann, the son of Russian emigres, is fluent in the Russian language and equally familiar with Soviet customs and traditions. He reported on the outpouring of literature, theater, music and art that followed, going beyond the bounds of previous acceptability and challenging the very structure of Soviet society. In a remarkable series, he recorded “the contradictory image of a nation sorely in need of change, and yet strongly resistant to it.”
Citations for Excellence:
Phil Bronstein
The San Francisco Examiner
Coverage of the Philippines
Mark Fineman
The Los Angeles Times
Coverage of the Philippines