May 14, 2010 — The 2010 recipient of the Shorenstein Prize for Reporting on Asia is Barbara Crossette, a former foreign correspondent for The New York Times. She is the author of several books on Asia, including So Close to Heaven: The Vanishing Buddhist Kingdoms of the Himalayas. Ms. Crossette was The New York Times bureau chief at the United Nations from 1994 to 2001. She was earlier a Times chief correspondent in Southeast Asia and South Asia and a diplomatic reporter in Washington. She has also reported from Central America, the Caribbean and Canada, and has been deputy foreign editor and senior editor in charge of the Times‘ weekend news operations. Before joining the newspaper in 1973, Ms. Crossette worked for The Evening and Sunday Bulletin in Philadelphia and The Birmingham Post in Birmingham, England.
The Shorenstein Prize award ceremony featured a panel discussion titled “South Asia’s Vulnerable Side: Where Economic Growth Outpaces Human Progress.”
The Shorenstein Prize for Reporting on Asia was established by the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University and the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University Centers in honor of Walter H. Shorenstein. The prize honors an American journalist or author not only for a distinguished body of work, but also for the particular way that work has helped American readers to understand the complexities of Asia.
The Shorenstein Prize is given annually at a ceremony held in Cambridge one year and at Stanford the next. The selection committee is composed of representatives from both institutions as well as distinguished scholars and reporters specializing in Asia.
