***This event is for Asia Society members and by-invitation-only. For more information, please contact the Box Office at 212-517-ASIA*** 

Reception to follow the discussion

The 2025 Osborn Elliott Prize for Excellence in Journalism on Asia goes to The Associated Press and FRONTLINE — the PBS investigative documentary series produced at GBH in Boston—for South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning. This project includes a series of investigative stories, an online interactive experience, and a documentary led by reporters Kim Tong-Hyung and Claire Galofaro, and director/producer Lora Moftah.

Join us for a conversation with this year's winners, in discussion with Jury Chair Marcus Brauchli.

In awarding the prize, the independent jury noted: 

“This tour de force of reporting by Associated Press reporters Kim Tong-Hyung and Claire Galofaro and FRONTLINE (PBS) documented the costs of a generations-long South Korean program of sending children abroad for adoption. Started in the years after the Korean war, the program eventually sent more than 200,000 children to new homes mostly in Europe and North America. Years of painstaking document review and interviews with more than 100 adoptees revealed systemwide fraud and wrongdoing in the program, which in turn imposed a lifetime emotional toll on parents whose children were taken from them, sometimes without consent, and on the adoptees themselves, many of whom were never told or could never find the truth about their origins. The AP also found that many U.S. adoptees — from South Korea and other countries — were left without citizenship because of legal lapses that Congress failed to fix. The work of these journalists has caused Seoul to open up records, countries to review past adoption practices, and families around the world to re-examine their personal histories.”

Speakers

Claire Galofaro has been documenting America’s fraying social safety net since joining The Associated Press in 2015. Galofaro, a national writer based in Louisville, Kentucky, was awarded the Livingston Award for Young Journalists for her reporting on Appalachia after the collapse of the coal industry. Her stories have explored the spiraling opioid crisis, the repercussions of poverty and government dependency and how despair in small-town America gave way to the rise of President Donald Trump.

She led a global team of reporters who exposed how the international arm of Purdue Pharma promotes opioids overseas, using many of the same tactics widely blamed for sparking the U.S. epidemic, and investigated how the U.S. government failed to prevent a Marine from taking home an Afghan war orphan, in defiance of international treaties and the laws of war. She was also part of a team that exposed systemic fraud and abuse in the South Korean adoption system, a reporting effort that was chronicled in a feature-length FRONTLINE documentary.

Before joining The Associated Press, she worked for several newspapers across the American South, from New Orleans to the Virginia foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. 

Lora Moftah is a reporter, producer and director with over a decade of journalism experience across print and television. She produced and directed "South Korea's Adoption Reckoning," an investigative documentary for FRONTLINE in partnership with The Associated Press, which received Peabody and Emmy nominations. Her work has appeared on ABC, Al Jazeera, CNN, and The New York Times Presents, the award-winning documentary series from The New York Times, Left/Right, FX and Hulu. She also helped to develop, launch, and produce The Weekly documentary series on FX and Hulu. 

Mary Rajkumar is the global investigations editor for The Associated Press, leading a team of 25 people along with her visual counterpart, Jeannie Ohm. Rajkumar previously led and edited two Pulitzer Gold Medal-winning investigations for the AP. The Erasing Mariupol package won in 2023 after the courage of reporters on the ground saved thousands of civilian lives, and a related documentary won an Oscar. The Seafood from Slaves package won in 2021 for an investigation into modern-day slavery in the seafood industry, which resulted in the rescue of more than 2,000 people. Three projects she edited also were named as Pulitzer finalists: On China for investigative reporting in 2021; on Al-Qaida for international in 2014, and on child trafficking in Africa in 2009.

As editor of the global team, she launched and edited the Korean adoptions investigation with Frontline, which was a finalist for both the Peabody and Emmy awards. She also oversaw two other major investigations, into deaths caused by police use of restraint methods and into the ties between prison labor and major companies.

Marcus Brauchli (moderator) is chairman of the jury for the Osborn Elliott Prize. Former editor of The Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, he is co-founder and managing partner of North Base Media, an investment company that has supported media including Rappler in the Philippines, IDN Media in Indonesia, Pocket Aces in India, and TNL Mediagene, a Tokyo-based digital media group.

The Osborn Elliott Prize for Excellence in Journalism on Asia honors a legendary journalist whose inclusive public dialogue and civic engagement characterized his life’s work.

Oz Elliott’s career began with the New York Journal of Commerce and TIME magazine half a century ago. He moved to Newsweek, where he served as editor, editor-in-chief, CEO and chairman from 1961 to 1976. During his long tenure, Elliott significantly shaped a new and more populist journalism. By launching the “My Turn” feature, he opened the magazine to a broader range of public opinion, in addition to engaging such regular columnists as Paul Samuelson, Milton Friedman and Meg Greenfield. His proudest accomplishment during those years was Newsweek’s outspoken support for the emerging civil rights movement: in 1963 he devoted a special issue to African-Americans.

Civic duty and journalism were constant themes in his life. In 1975 Oz Elliott became founding chairman of the Citizens Committee for NYC. A year later he became New York’s first Deputy Mayor for Economic Development. This was followed by 15 years as dean and professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where he established the Poliak Center for First Amendment Studies and the Delacorte Center for Magazine Journalism. In 1992 he led a march on Washington of 250,000 people protesting the federal neglect of U.S. cities.

Oz Elliott was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He served on numerous boards, including Asia Society, the American Museum of Natural History, the New York Public Library and Harvard’s Board of Overseers. He was among the first to be inducted into the Magazine Editors Hall of Fame. He served on the Pulitzer Prize Board, wrote books, and received honorary degrees and many journalism awards. Through his leadership as a civic journalist and civic stalwart, he inspired and trained thousands to become active partners in shaping our society. Though Oz died in 2008, his contribution is a lasting legacy.