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Keith Bradsher of the New York Times Wins Asia Society Osborn Elliott Journalism Prize for China Green Energy Series

May 24, 2010 -- The Asia Society is pleased to announce that Keith Bradsher of The New York Times has won the Osborn Elliott Prize for Excellence in Journalism on Asia for a series of stories examining China’s role in developing and promoting green technologies. Bradsher’s work was chosen by an independent jury for its depth and far-reaching quality. Through a dozen front-page articles, Bradsher revealed how China, as one of the world’s largest polluters, has also begun to develop some of the world’s most advanced solutions to global warming and has pursued them aggressively.

The $10,000 cash prize will be presented at a June 1 luncheon program at Asia Society in New York.

According to Norman Pearlstine, Chief Content Officer at Bloomberg and former Editor-in-Chief of Time Inc., who chairs the jury for the prize, “Keith Bradsher’s stories explored the underreported story of China’s environmental awakening, tracking the country’s efforts to dominate industries that will provide cleaner and more efficient energy throughout the world.”

Keith Bradsher is the Hong Kong bureau chief of The New York Times, covering Asian business, economic, political and science news. He has covered energy and technology issues for nearly two decades, during six years covering automakers as the Detroit bureau chief and before that as a Washington correspondent covering international economics from 1991 through 1995. His green energy reporting on China won the Malcolm Forbes Overseas Press Club Award for international business reporting in April, 2010. Bradsher won the George Polk Award for national reporting for his coverage of sport utility vehicles in 1997 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize the same year. His book on SUVs, "High and Mighty", won the New York Public Library's Helen Bernstein Award in 2003. He joined the Times in 1989. Bradsher has a public policy master’s degree in economics from Princeton University and received his bachelor’s degree with highest honors in economics as a Morehead Scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The jury also awarded an honorable mention to Chosun Ilbo for its reporting on the plight of North Korean refugees and human trafficking along the North Korea-China border, specifically for a series of written stories and images that appeared on Chosun Ilbo’s English language edition online. The stories, written by Lee Hark-joon and Park Jong-in, were part of a broader multimedia effort that included segments broadcast on BBC and on PBS Wide Angle under the title “Crossing Heaven’s Border.”

Following is a selection of stories from Keith Bradsher’s prize-winning China Green Energy series:
China Vies to Be World's Leader in Electric Cars
China Builds High Wall to Guard Energy Industry
China’s Incinerators Loom as a Global Hazard 

Read a story from Chosun Ilbo's series on human trafficking:
On the Border
 
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 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 of The 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, Deputy Managing Editor, TIME magazine; Chrystia Freeland, Global Editor-in-Chief, Reuters; Pramit Pal Chaudhuri, Senior Editor, Hindustan Times and 2007 Bernard Schwartz Fellow, Asia Society; Carla Anne Robbins, Deputy Editorial Page Editor, The New York Times; Gillian Tett, U.S. Managing Editor, Financial Times; Sheryl WuDunn, former New York Times foreign correspondent and editor.

Click here for more information on the prize. 

About Asia Society
Asia Society is the leading global organization working to strengthen relationships and promote understanding among the people, leaders, and institutions of Asia and the United States. The Society seeks to enhance dialogue, encourage creative expression, and generate new ideas across the fields of arts and culture, policy and business, and education. Founded in 1956 by John D. Rockefeller 3rd, Asia Society is a nonpartisan, nonprofit educational institution with offices in Hong Kong, Houston, Los Angeles, Manila, Melbourne, Mumbai, New York, San Francisco, Shanghai, Seoul and Washington, D.C. For more information, visit www.AsiaSociety.org.