STANFORD, Calif.-Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center has named Los Angeles Times Beijing bureau chief Barbara Demick winner of the 2012 Shorenstein Journalism Award. Demick was selected for her innovative and extraordinarily sensitive reporting on Northeast Asia over the past decade.

The Shorenstein Journalism Award was launched in 2002 to recognize the contributions of Western journalists in deepening our understanding of Asia. In 2011, the scope of the award was broadened to encompass Asian journalists who are at the forefront of the battle for press freedom in Asia, who have paved the way in constructing a new role for the media, and who have aided the growth of mutual understanding between Asia and the United States. Continuing as an annual tradition, the Shorenstein Journalism Award now alternates between recipients from the West, who have mainly addressed an American audience, and recipients from Asia.

Barbara Demick joined the Los Angeles Times in 2001 and has served as its Beijing bureau chief since 2008. Her reporting from China has focused on human trafficking, corruption, and minorities, as well as ongoing coverage of neighboring North Korea. Demick is the author of two books: Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea and Logavina Street: Life and Death in a Sarajevo Neighborhood. Her work has won awards from the Asia Society, the Overseas Press Club, and the American Academy of Diplomacy, among others.

Nothing to Envy began as a series of articles published during Demick's tenure as the inaugural Los Angeles Times bureau chief in Korea. Centering on the lives of six North Korean defectors from the northeastern port city of Chongjin, it has been translated into more than 20 languages. The New York Review of Books has called Nothing to Envy “a tour de force of meticulous reporting,” and the Wall Street Journal has hailed it as “a deeply moving book.” It recently won the International Book Award on Human Rights.

Before joining the Los Angeles Times, Demick worked for the Philadelphia Inquirer as a foreign correspondent in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Her reporting on Sarajevo won the George Polk Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Award, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting.

Demick is a graduate of Yale and taught a seminar on coverage of repressive regimes at Princeton University. She currently lives in Beijing with her son Nicholas.

On February 11, 2013, Demick will visit Stanford University to take part in a lunchtime panel discussion about different ways of viewing North Korea, from a journalistic perspective and that of aid workers and authors who draw on the work of journalists reporting on North Korea. Demick will receive the award at a dinner ceremony where she will deliver a talk on her work in Asia.

About the Award

The Shorenstein Journalism Award, which carries a cash prize of $10,000, honors a journalist 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 award, established in 2002, was named after Walter H. Shorenstein, the philanthropist, activist, and businessman who endowed two institutions that are focused respectively on Asia and on the press: the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) in the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University, and the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

The award was originally designed to honor distinguished American journalists for their work on Asia, including veteran correspondents for leading American media such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, Newsweek, NBC News, PBS, and the Wall Street Journal. The first group of awardees included: Stanley Karnow (2002), Orville Schell (2003), Don Oberdorfer (2004), Nayan Chanda (2005), Melinda Liu (2006), John Pomfret (2007), Ian Buruma (2008), Seth Mydans (2009), and Barbara Crossette (2010).

In 2011, Shorenstein APARC re-envisioned the award to encompass distinguished Asian journalists who are at the forefront of the battle for press freedom in Asia and who have paved the way in constructing a new role for the media, including the growth of social media and Internet-based journalism. It also seeks to identify those Asian journalists who, from that side of the Pacific Ocean, have aided the growth of mutual understanding between Asia and the United States. Independent, pioneering Chinese media company Caixin was the first Asian recipient of the Shorenstein Journalism Award.

The Shorenstein Journalism Award not only to honors the legacy of Walter Shorenstein and his twin passions for Asia and the press, but also promotes the necessity of a free and vibrant media for the future of relations between Asia and the United States. A free press—both in its traditional aspect and also as an outgrowth of Internet social media—remains the essential catalyst for the growth of democratic freedom, as recent events in the Middle East have shown.

Continuing as an annual tradition, the Shorenstein Journalism Award now alternates between recipients from the West, who have mainly addressed an American audience, and recipients from Asia. The award’s distinguished jury members include:

Ian Buruma, the Henry R. Luce Professor of Democracy, Human Rights, and Journalism at Bard College, is a noted Asia expert who frequently contributes to publications including the New York Times Magazine, the New York Review of Books, and the New Yorker. He is a recipient of the Shorenstein Journalism Award and the international Erasmus Prize (both in 2008).

Nayan Chanda, director of publications at the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization and editor of YaleGlobal Online Magazine, served for nearly 30 years as editor, editor-at-large, and correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review. He was honored with the Shorenstein Journalism Award in 2005.

Susan Chira, assistant managing editor for news and former foreign editor of the New York Times, has extensive Asia experience, including serving as Japan correspondent for the Times in the 1980s. During her long tenure as foreign editor, the Times twice won the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting (2009 and 2007).

Donald K. Emmerson, a well-respected Indonesia scholar, serves as director of Shorenstein APARC’s Southeast Asia Forum and as a research fellow for the prestigious National Asia Research Program (NARP). Frequently cited in the international media, Emmerson also contributes op-eds to leading publications such as the Asia Times.

Orville Schell is the Arthur Ross Director at the Asia Society of New York's Center on U.S.-China Relations, and is also a former jury member for the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting. He has written extensively on China, and was awarded the 1997 George Peabody Award for producing the groundbreaking documentary the Gate of Heavenly Peace. He received the Shorenstein Journalism Award in 2003.

Daniel C. Sneider serves as the associate director for research at Shorenstein APARC and also as a NARP research associate. He frequently contributes articles to publications such as Foreign Policy, Asia Policy, and Slate and had three decades of experience as a foreign correspondent and editor for publications including the Christian Science Monitor and the San Jose Mercury News. 

On October 30, the Program on Human Rights (PHR) at Stanford's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) held a day-long conference to examine health and human rights. The conference was held to discuss how a rights-based approach to health services can impact the delivery of effective health interventions and advance other socio-economic and cultural rights in developing regions. The conference titled, “Why We Should Care: Health and Human Rights” was divided into five panels with presenters from diverse backgrounds and professions including lawyers, doctors, public health experts, students and activists.

The Program:

The conference started with a welcoming address by Helen Stacy, director of the Program on Human Rights. CDDRL Director Larry Diamond introduced the keynote speaker Paul H. Wise, professor of child health and society and pediatrics at Stanford University’s School of Medicine, and director of the Center for Policy, Outcomes and Prevention. Wise's opening remarks began on a somber note, “The language of rights means very little to a child stillborn, an infant dying in pain from pneumonia or a child desiccated by famine.” In his address, Wise emphasized the need for an aligned and integrated rights-based approach that does not undermine effective and efficient medical interventions. “We need to fill the gap between the worlds of child health and child rights so that our programs and policies are both effective and just,” he stressed.

Following the keynote address, the conference presenters shared their work according to a geographic or thematic focus. The first panel brought together three generations of speakers from Stanford - a faculty member, a pre-doctoral fellow and a recent graduate - in a unique opportunity to share ideas and discuss possibilities of health work in Africa. Rebecca Walker, clinical instructor in emergency medicine at Stanford School of Medicine, presented her impressions and reactions on Mindy Roseman’s study of forced sterilization in Namibia. Roseman, academic director of the Human Rights Program and lecturer on law at Harvard Law School, was unable to attend due to flight complications after hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast.

Eric Kramon, 2011-2012 pre-doctoral fellow at CDDRL, spoke about the political sources of ethnic inequality in health outcomes in Africa.  Kramon’s work in Kenya illustrated how politics plays a determinant role in ethnic inequalities and consequently in access to health and health outcomes. Jeffrey Tran, a 2011 Stanford graduate in human biology, described the vision behind the launch of the Project of Emergency First Aid Responder in Western Cape Province, South Africa that he helped implement. Tran explained, “Individuals and communities are an integral part of the solution and we work with the communities to develop first aid training programs that are taught and eventually run by community members.”

Panel two was dedicated to the health impact of drones in Pakistan and in Gaza. Based on research by the Stanford International Clinic on Human Rights and Conflict Negotiation in Pakistan, Professor James Cavallaro and Stanford law school student Omar Shakir, explained that drones are not only responsible for deaths of civilians but also constitute a constant disturbance to social life and mental health of ordinary people, including their relations with children and the elderly. Drones impact other rights as well - such as the right to education - as children are prevented from attending schools for fear of drone strikes. Rajaie S. Batniji, resident physician in internal medicine at Stanford and a CDDRL affiliate, explained the clinical diagnosis of traumatic disorders that result from constant surveillance and insecurity. He cited the work of Jonathan Mann in defining dignity and the devastating effects on physical, mental, and social well-being when these senses are violated. Batniji explained that populations in Gaza are prevented from living life with dignity and respect because they live under constant threat to their security and intrusion into their homes and communications.

Vivek Srinivasan, manager of the Program on Liberation Technology at CDDRL, presented his experience on the Right to Food Campaign in India. He believes that this campaign has led to the mobilization for rights and the provision of services. “Not all demands are confrontational. Communities begin demanding something that is perceived as small in scope but have ramifications that extend to other rights such as the right to education, the right to housing and the right to work.” According to Srinivasan, the Right to Food Campaign in India has had a tremendous impact in putting hunger on the policy agenda. Suchi Pande, an activist-researcher who worked on the Right to Information Campaign in India for over seven years and was the secretary for the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information from 2006 to 2008, supported Srinivasan’s argument of strong correlation in achievements and right-based mobilization. However, Pande pointed out that despite successes in the Right to Food Campaign, other economic and social rights including the right to health in India continues to be a non-issue for politicians and the government. She is optimistic and believes that rural public hearings, the role of the right to information and its supporting mechanisms will facilitate access to public health in rural India.

In panel four, Sarah MacCarthy showed results that suggest that counseling and testing services for HIV-positive pregnant women remain limited, insufficient or lacking in quality in Salvador, Brazil. “While Brazil’s HIV/AIDS program has been internationally acclaimed, national practice still fails to meet national and global guidelines,” she explained. Calling attention to the regional discrepancies in the HIV/AIDS policy and program implementation in Brazil, Nadejda Marques, manager of the Program on Human Rights at CDDRL,, expressed concerns about the implementation of an HIV/AIDS program in a context of limited resources. “In Angola, counseling and voluntary testing units for HIV/AIDS don’t have drinking water or sanitary conditions to receive patients. They lack basic equipment for testing and data collection, there is a generalized shortage of doctors, and health care providers have no specific training on HIV/AIDS.” Despite this alarming situation, Marques explained that advocating for the rights of persons living with HIV/AIDS in Angola has put in evidence the failure of a heath system unable to provide even the most basic services to its population and has enabled mobilization in a context where human rights are routinely violated.

Ami Laws, adjunct associate professor of medicine at Stanford, described how a physician can provide services in collaboration with the judicial system to advance human rights. Laws is an expert witness on cases of torture survivors that require asylum status in the U.S. and has worked mainly with victims of torture in the Punjab region in India. Everaldo Lamprea, a JSD candidate at Stanford Law School and an assistant professor at Los Andes Law School in Bogotá, Colombia, spoke about his recent comparative study on health litigation in low and middle-income countries. The escalation of right-to-health litigation in these countries can have unexpected and harmful consequences to healthcare reforms and the enforceability of the right to health. In part, this is because significant financial resources are allocated to the litigation processes and not to the health system. In addition, while litigation can highlight gaps that exist in the health system that need regulation, countries have been very slow to adapt and adjust to these signals.

Next Steps:

A number of key ideas, questions and insights emerged from the conference including:

. How to identify an effective intervention that will also mobilize communities to advocate for its implementation?

. How to provide services to the more vulnerable populations without alienating a contingent that has access to basic health care services?

. What instruments can be used to share best practices among national healthcare systems?

. How do global priorities adapt to contexts of limited financial resources and human capital?

. How can punctual achievements in rights that guarantee access to health be expanded for the achievement of other social, economic and cultural rights?

The Program on Human Rights at CDDRL will continue to pursue a research agenda examining health and human rights following the conference and announced that it will be the thematic focus of the Sanela Diana Jenkins Speakers Series in 2014. The PHR is also actively seeking support for research projects that include a right to health component at the core of its academic investigation for the 2012-2013 academic year.