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Bangladesh-Focused Investigative Media Outlet Netra News Wins 2025 Shorenstein Journalism Award

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Noa Ronkin
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Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) announced today, in the run-up to World Press Freedom Day, that Bangladesh-focused investigative newsroom Netra News is the recipient of the 2025 Shorenstein Journalism Award. Banned in Bangladesh, Netra News is a Sweden-based, independent platform for public interest journalism that publishes reportage, analysis, and debate on Bangladeshi politics and society. The award recognizes the media outlet for its courageous investigations into high-level corruption and human rights abuses in Bangladesh, defending press freedom, and championing the rule of law and democratic values in the country, one of the world’s most difficult places for practicing journalism. APARC will present the Shorenstein Award to Tasneem Khalil, the platform’s founding editor-in-chief, at a ceremony at Stanford University in autumn 2025.

Sponsored by APARC, the annual Shorenstein Award carries a $10,000 cash prize and honors journalists and journalism organizations for advancing a greater understanding of Asia through outstanding reporting on critical issues in the region. Emulating this purpose, Netra News and its team of editors and reporters have published fearless investigations into human rights violations and corruption in Bangladesh, including extrajudicial killings and acts of torture by security forces, deadly custodial abuse by military personnel, an illegal secret prison run by Bangladesh’s notorious military intelligence agency, and state-sponsored cybercrime. 

Bangladesh had experienced political corruption for decades and had long been a dangerous environment for journalists. Between 2001 and 2006 — a time when an interim government supported by the military took over — journalists in the country suffered threats, intimidation, harassment, and torture from law enforcement agencies.

Tasneem Khalil

Investigative reporter Tasneem Khalil experienced the regime’s brutality firsthand. A pioneer of investigative journalism in Bangladesh and author of Jallad: Death Squads and State Terror in South Asia, Khalil had worked for the Bangladeshi English-language Daily Star, consulted Human Rights Watch, and was a news representative for CNN. In 2007, he was arrested and tortured by Bangladesh’s military intelligence agency in response to his reports on human and civil rights violations by state forces. He was released thanks to international pressure and, after several weeks spent in hiding, escaped Bangladesh and took refuge in Sweden.

Over the next decade, press freedom in Bangladesh steadily declined as then-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her ruling party, the Awami League, tightened their grip by brutally harassing and silencing opposition voices and independent civil society figures. To stifle peaceful dissent and curb free expression, the government passed draconian laws, such as the 2018 Digital Security Act (DSA), under which journalists and critics of the Awami League were routinely targeted and prosecuted.

Khalil launched Netra News on December 26, 2019, to hold Bangladesh’s government and security forces accountable and defend fundamental freedoms in the country. Within 48 hours of publishing its first exposé on alleged ministerial corruption, its site was blocked in Bangladesh. Since then, Khalil has overseen Netra News’ growth into the country’s premier independent, non-partisan investigative media outlet, combining offshore human rights-centric public interest journalism with on-the-ground reporting. 

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Operating amid severe risks, Netra News has become a vital force for speaking truth to power and defending the rule of law in Bangladesh. Under Tasneem Khalil’s leadership, its investigations have pushed the boundaries of accountability journalism and innovative storytelling.
Gi-Wook Shin
Director, APARC

The newsroom's bold coverage, published in English and Bangla, has earned international recognition, including a Sigma Award, a Human Rights Press Award, and a Global Shining Light Award. In summer 2024, as mass student-led protests against Ms. Hasina broke out across Bangladesh and authorities imposed violent crackdowns and internet blackouts, Netra News emerged as a rare source of non-partisan information on the unfolding events. The protests toppled Hasina’s authoritarian government, whose actions may amount to crimes against humanity, according to a recent United Nations report.

“Operating amid severe risks, Netra News has become a vital force for speaking truth to power and defending the rule of law in Bangladesh,” said Stanford sociologist Gi-Wook Shin, the William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea and the director of APARC. “Under Tasneem Khalil’s leadership, the newsroom investigations have pushed the boundaries of accountability journalism and innovative storytelling. We are excited to honor Netra News with the 2025 Shorenstein Journalism Award and recognize Mr. Khalil’s fight for human rights and press freedom.”

Presented annually by APARC, the Shorenstein Award honors the legacy of APARC’s benefactor, Mr. Walter H. Shorenstein, and his twin passions for promoting excellence in journalism and understanding of Asia. The judging committee for the award, which selected Netra News as the 2025 honoree, noted that the newsroom’s work will be crucial as Bangladesh, now led by an interim government headed by Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus, tries to pursue constitutional reform, safeguard what young people have made possible, and avert a return to authoritarian rule.

The judging committee members are William Dobson, co-editor of the Journal of Democracy; Anna Fifield, Asia-Pacific Editor of the Washington Post and recipient of the 2018 Shorenstein Journalism Award; James Hamilton, vice provost for undergraduate education, Hearst Professor of Communication, and director of the Stanford Journalism Program at Stanford University; Louisa Lim, associate professor, audio-visual journalism culture and communication at the University of Melbourne; and Raju Narisetti, partner and leader of McKinsey Global Publishing, McKinsey & Company.

Twenty-three honorees previously received the Shorenstein award, including most recently Chris Buckley, chief China correspondent for the New York Times; India's premier magazine of long-form journalism The Caravan; NPR’s Emily Feng for her work as Beijing correspondent; Swe Win, editor-in-chief of the independent Burmese news organization Myanmar Now; Tom Wright, co-author of the bestseller Billion Dollar Whale and a veteran Asia reporter; and Nobel Laureate Maria Ressa, CEO and executive editor of the Philippines-based news organization Rappler.

Information about the 2025 Shorenstein Journalism Award ceremony and panel discussion featuring Mr. Khalil will be forthcoming in the fall quarter.

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Sponsored by Stanford University’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, the 24th annual Shorenstein Journalism Award honors Netra News, Bangladesh's premier independent, non-partisan media outlet, for its unflinching reportage on human rights abuses and corruption in Bangladesh and its efforts to establish and uphold fundamental freedoms in the country.

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Across the Firewall: Foreign Media’s Role in Shaping Chinese Social Media Narratives on the Russo-Ukrainian War

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There is a widespread perception that China’s digital censorship distances its people from the global internet, and the Chinese Communist Party, through state-controlled media, is the main gatekeeper of information about foreign affairs. Our analysis of narratives about the Russo-Ukrainian War circulating on the Chinese social media platform Weibo challenges this view. Comparing narratives on Weibo with 8.26 million unique news articles from 2,500 of some of the most trafficked websites in China, Russia, Ukraine, and the United States (totaling 10,000 sites), we find that Russian news websites published more articles matching narratives found on Weibo than news websites from China, Ukraine, or the United States. Similarly, a plurality of Weibo narratives were most associated with narratives found on Russian news websites while less than ten percent were most associated with narratives from Chinese news sites. Narratives later appearing on Weibo were more likely to first appear on Russian rather than Chinese, Ukrainian, or US news websites, and Russian websites were highly influential for narratives appearing on Weibo. Altogether, these results show that Chinese state media was not the main gatekeeper of information about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for Weibo users.

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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
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Jennifer Pan

2025 Shorenstein Journalism Award Open to Nomination Entries

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Noa Ronkin
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The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), Stanford University’s hub for the interdisciplinary study of contemporary Asia, invites nominations for the 2025 Shorenstein Journalism Award. The award recognizes outstanding journalists and journalism organizations for their significant contributions to reporting on the complexities of the Asia-Pacific region. The 2025 award will honor an Asian news media outlet or a journalist whose work has primarily appeared in Asian news media. Award nomination entries are due by Saturday, February 15, 2025.

Sponsored by APARC, the award carries a cash prize of US $10,000. It alternates between recipients who have primarily contributed to Asian news media and those whose work has mainly appeared in Western news media. In the 2025 cycle, the award will recognize a recipient from the former category. The Award Selection Committee invites nominations from news editors, publishers, scholars, teachers, journalists, news media outlets, journalism associations, and entities focused on researching and interpreting the Asia-Pacific region. Self-nominations are not accepted.

The award defines the Asia-Pacific region as encompassing Northeast, Southeast, South, and Central Asia, as well as Australasia. Both individual journalists with a substantial body of work and journalism organizations are eligible for the award. Nominees’ work may be in print or broadcast journalism or in emerging forms of multimedia journalism. The Award Selection Committee, comprised of journalism and Asia experts, judges nomination entries and selects the honorees.

An annual tradition since 2002, the award honors the legacy of APARC benefactor, Mr. Walter H. Shorenstein, and his twin passions for promoting excellence in journalism and understanding of Asia. Throughout its history, the award has recognized world-class journalists who push the boundaries of reporting on Asia. Recent honorees include The New York Times' Chief China Correspondent Chris Buckley; India's long-form narrative journalism magazine The Caravan; Burmese journalist and human rights defender Swe Win; and Maria Ressa, CEO of the Philippine news platform Rappler and 2021 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.

Award nominations are accepted electronically via our online entry form through Saturday, February 15, 2025, at 11:59 PM PST. For information about the nomination rules and to submit an entry please visit the award nomination entry page. APARC will announce the winner by April 2025 and present the award at a public ceremony at Stanford in autumn quarter 2025.

Please direct all inquiries to aparc-communications@stanford.edu.

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Sponsored by Stanford University’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, the annual Shoresntein Award promotes excellence in journalism on the Asia-Pacific region and carries a cash prize of US $10,000. The 2025 award will honor an Asian news media outlet or a journalist whose work has primarily appeared in Asian news media. Nomination entries are due by February 15, 2025.

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2024 Shorenstein Journalism Award: The New York Times' Chris Buckley on Memory, Forgetting and Reporting on China

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Flyer for the 2024 Shorenstein Journalism Award with headshots of award winner Chris Buckley and panel speakers Oriana Skylar Mastro, Xueguan Zhou, and William Dobson.

*This event is at capacity and registration has closed*

“There is no 'why?' here”: Memory, forgetting and reporting on China

 

The 2024 Shorenstein Journalism Award Honors New York Times’ Chief China Correspondent Chris Buckley


In three decades of reporting in China, and now Taiwan, Chris Buckley has often grappled with how memories of war, revolution, famine, massacre and extraordinary change are preserved, erased, rewritten and fought over. In this talk, he will discuss the power of the past in China under Xi Jinping, and the challenges and rewards of reporting on — and trying to understand — China in an age of shrinking access.

Join APARC as we honor Buckley, winner of the 2024 Shorenstein Journalism Award for his exemplary reporting on societal, cultural, political, foreign policy, and security issues in China and Taiwan.

Buckley's keynote will be followed by a conversation with two experts: Oriana Skylar Mastro, a center fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and Xueguang Zhou, the Kwoh-Ting Li Professor in Economic Development, a professor of sociology, and a Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies senior fellow. The event will conclude with an audience Q&A session.

Moderator: William Dobson, coeditor of the Journal of Democracy and a member of the selection committee for the Shorenstein Journalism Award.

Speakers   
 

Chris Buckley

Chris Buckley grew up in Sydney, Australia, and began studying Chinese at the University of Sydney and the Australian National University. After graduating with a degree in history and abandoning the beginnings of a law degree, he went to Renmin University in Beijing, where he studied Chinese Communist Party history. He later returned to the Australian National University where he did graduate studies at the Contemporary China Center.

Chris has been the Chief China Correspondent for the New York Times since 2019. Before joining the Times in 2012, he was a senior correspondent in Beijing for Reuters News Agency for 7 years, and before that worked as a researcher and reporter for the New York Times and International Herald Tribune in Beijing. He has covered Chinese politics, foreign policy, social change and environmental issues for over 20 years, but is a newcomer to Taiwan where he now lives.

Chris was with colleagues a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in international reporting in 2020 for coverage of mass detentions and repressive controls on Uyghurs and other ethnic groups in Xinjiang region. He was also one of the team of reporters that won the Pulitzer Prize in Public Service in 2021 for coverage of the COVID pandemic. Chris spent 76 days in Wuhan during the COVID lockdown there and was then obliged to leave China in May 2020. He spent two and half years working from southern Sydney, where he grew up, and moved to Taiwan in late 2022.

Oriana Skylar Mastro

Oriana Skylar Mastro is a Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Courtesy Assistant Professor of Political Science at Stanford University, where her research focuses on Chinese military and security policy, Asia-Pacific security issues, war termination, and coercive diplomacy. She is also a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She was previously an assistant professor of security studies at Georgetown University. Mastro continues to serve in the United States Air Force Reserve, for which she currently works at the Pentagon as Deputy Director of Reserve Global China Strategy. For her contributions to U.S. strategy in Asia, she won the Individual Reservist of the Year Award in 2016 and 2022 (FGO).

She has published widely, including in International Security, Security Studies, Foreign Affairs, the Journal of Strategic Studies, The Washington Quarterly, the Economist, and the New York Times. Her most recent book, "Upstart: How China Became a Great Power" (Oxford University Press, 2024), evaluates China’s approach to competition. Her book, "The Costs of Conversation: Obstacles to Peace Talks in Wartime" (Cornell University Press, 2019), won the 2020 American Political Science Association International Security Section Best Book by an Untenured Faculty Member.

She holds a B.A. in East Asian Studies from Stanford University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University.

Headshot of Xueguang Zhou

Xueguang Zhou is the Kwoh-Ting Li Professor in Economic Development, a professor of sociology, and a Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies senior fellow. His main area of research is on institutional changes in contemporary Chinese society, focusing on Chinese organizations and management, social inequality, and state-society relationships.

One of Zhou's current research projects is a study of the rise of the bureaucratic state in China. He also studies patterns of career mobility and personnel flow among different government offices to understand intra-organizational relationships in the Chinese bureaucracy. Another ongoing project is an ethnographic study of rural governance in China.

The latest book, "The Logic of Governance in China: An Organizational Approach," draws on more than a decade of fieldwork to offer a unified theoretical framework to explain how China's centralized political system maintains governance and how this process produces recognizable policy cycles that are obstacles to bureaucratic rationalization, professionalism, and the rule of law.

His other recent publications examine the role of bureaucracy in public goods provision in rural China, interactions among peasants, markets, and capital, access to financial resources in Chinese enterprises, multiple logics in village elections, and collusion among local governments in policy implementation.

Before joining Stanford in 2006, Zhou taught at Cornell University, Duke University, and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He is a guest professor at Peking University, Tsinghua University, and the People's University of China. Zhou received his Ph.D. in sociology from Stanford University in 1991.

Moderator
 

William Dobson

Will Dobson is the coeditor of the Journal of Democracy. Previously, he was the Chief International Editor at NPR where he led the network’s award-winning international coverage and oversaw a team of editors and correspondents in 17 overseas bureaus and Washington, DC. He is the author of The Dictator’s Learning Curve: Inside the Global Battle for Democracy, which examines the struggle between authoritarian regimes and the people who challenge them. It was selected as one of the “best books of the year” by Foreign Affairs, the Atlantic, The Telegraph, and Prospect, and it has been translated into many languages, including Chinese, German, Japanese, and Portuguese.

Prior to joining NPR, Dobson was Slate magazine’s Washington Bureau Chief, overseeing the magazine’s coverage of politics, jurisprudence, and international news. Previously, he served as the Managing Editor of Foreign Policy, overseeing the editorial planning of its award-winning magazine, website, and nine foreign editions. Earlier in his career, Dobson served as Newsweek International’s Asia Editor, managing a team of correspondents in more than 15 countries. His articles and essays have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. He has also served as a Visiting Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Dobson holds a law degree from Harvard Law School and a Master’s degree in East Asian Studies from Harvard University. He received his Bachelor’s degree, summa cum laude, from Middlebury College.

William Dobson

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Chris Buckley, New York Times’ Chief China Correspondent

Oriana Skylar Mastro

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Stanford University
Encina Hall
Stanford,  CA  94305-6055

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Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Courtesy Assistant Professor of Political Science
Faculty Affiliate at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
OrianaSkylarMastro_2023_Headshot.jpg PhD

Oriana Skylar Mastro is a Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Courtesy Assistant Professor of Political Science at Stanford University, where her research focuses on Chinese military and security policy, Asia-Pacific security issues, war termination, and coercive diplomacy. She is also a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She was previously an assistant professor of security studies at Georgetown University. Mastro continues to serve in the United States Air Force Reserve, for which she currently works at the Pentagon as Deputy Director of Reserve Global China Strategy. For her contributions to U.S. strategy in Asia, she won the Individual Reservist of the Year Award in 2016 and 2022 (FGO).

She has published widely, including in International Security, Security Studies, Foreign Affairs, the Journal of Strategic Studies, The Washington Quarterly, the Economist, and the New York Times. Her most recent book, Upstart: How China Became a Great Power (Oxford University Press, 2024), evaluates China’s approach to competition. Her book, The Costs of Conversation: Obstacles to Peace Talks in Wartime (Cornell University Press, 2019), won the 2020 American Political Science Association International Security Section Best Book by an Untenured Faculty Member.

She holds a B.A. in East Asian Studies from Stanford University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University.

Her publications and commentary can be found at orianaskylarmastro.com and on Twitter @osmastro.

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The U.S.-China Great Power Competition

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Xueguang Zhou

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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Kwoh-Ting Li Professor in Economic Development
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Graduate Seminar Professor at the Stanford Center at Peking University, June and July of 2014
Faculty Affiliate at the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions
Xueguang Zhou_0.jpg PhD

Xueguang Zhou is the Kwoh-Ting Li Professor in Economic Development, a professor of sociology, and a Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies senior fellow. His main area of research is on institutional changes in contemporary Chinese society, focusing on Chinese organizations and management, social inequality, and state-society relationships.

One of Zhou's current research projects is a study of the rise of the bureaucratic state in China. He works with students and colleagues to conduct participatory observations of government behaviors in the areas of environmental regulation enforcement, in policy implementation, in bureaucratic bargaining, and in incentive designs. He also studies patterns of career mobility and personnel flow among different government offices to understand intra-organizational relationships in the Chinese bureaucracy.

Another ongoing project is an ethnographic study of rural governance in China. Zhou adopts a microscopic approach to understand how peasants, village cadres, and local governments encounter and search for solutions to emerging problems and challenges in their everyday lives, and how institutions are created, reinforced, altered, and recombined in response to these problems. Research topics are related to the making of markets, village elections, and local government behaviors.

His recent publications examine the role of bureaucracy in public goods provision in rural China (Modern China, 2011); interactions among peasants, markets, and capital (China Quarterly, 2011); access to financial resources in Chinese enterprises (Chinese Sociological Review, 2011, with Lulu Li); multiple logics in village elections (Social Sciences in China, 2010, with Ai Yun); and collusion among local governments in policy implementation (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 2011, with Ai Yun and Lian Hong; and Modern China, 2010).

Before joining Stanford in 2006, Zhou taught at Cornell University, Duke University, and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He is a guest professor at Peking University, Tsinghua University, and the People's University of China. Zhou received his Ph.D. in sociology from Stanford University in 1991.

The Institutional Foundations of the Chinese Bureaucratic State

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Georgia's Democratic Struggle: The Anti-Foreign Agent Law and Uncertain European Future

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Nora Sulots
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In May 2024, Georgia's president, Salome Zourabichvili, vetoed the Parliament's contentious anti-foreign agent law, but called her act "symbolic," as the majority Georgian Dream party promised to override the veto at their next session.

In a talk hosted by The Europe Center on May 28, Kathryn Stoner, Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), explored Georgia's democratic aspirations within the context of the law, dissecting its potential ramifications for civil society, political freedoms, and Georgia's European integration ambitions.

Professor Stoner, who was awarded an honorary doctorate in 2016 from Iliad State University in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia, also discussed the politics and complexities of the recent law and its implications for Georgia's future.

A recording of the talk can be viewed below:

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Thousands of demonstrators opposing the bill on 'transparency of foreign influence' gather in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, on May 11, 2024.
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Kathryn Stoner, Mosbacher Director of CDDRL, discussed the politics and complexities of the anti-foreign agent law and its implications for Georgia's future.

Senem Erberk Akbas

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Senem is the Program Manager for Reform for Results at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. She has over a decade of experience in fundraising and project management in non-profit organizations in Istanbul, Turkey. Before coming to Stanford, she served as a Development Associate at the School of Music and Arts in the Bay Area.

Senem holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communication and Design from Bilkent University. She has a passion for the arts and enjoys baking and traveling with her family in her free time.

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Shorenstein APARC 2022–23 Annual Report

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Shorenstein APARC's annual report for the academic year 2022-23 is now available.

Learn about the research, publications, and events produced by the Center and its programs over the last academic year. Read the feature sections, which look at Shorenstein APARC's 40th-anniversary celebration and its conference series examining the shape of Asia in 2030; learn about the research our postdoctoral fellows engaged in; and catch up on the Center's policy work, education initiatives, publications, and policy outreach. Download your copy or read below:

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Kumi Naidoo

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Kumi Naidoo is a prominent South African human rights and environmental justice activist. At the age of fifteen, he organized school boycotts against the apartheid educational system in South Africa. His courageous actions made him a target for the Security Police, leading to his exile in the United Kingdom, where he remained until 1990. Upon his return to South Africa, Kumi played a pivotal role in the legalization of the African National Congress in his home province of KwaZulu Natal.

Kumi also served as the official spokesperson for the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), responsible for overseeing the country's first democratic elections in April 1994. His dedication to democracy and justice led to notable international roles, including being the first person from the global South to lead Greenpeace International as Executive Director from 2009 to 2016. He later served as the Secretary General of Amnesty International from 2018 to 2020.

In the realm of education, Kumi has shared his expertise, lecturing at Fossil Free University and holding a Richard von Weizsäcker Fellowship at the Robert Bosch Academy until early 2022.

Currently, Kumi serves as a Senior Advisor for the Community Arts Network (CAN). He holds the position of Distinguished visiting lecturer at Stanford University’s Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, and is a Professor of Practice at the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University. Additionally, he continues to represent global interests as a Global Ambassador for Africans Rising for Justice, Peace, and Dignity. He also holds positions as a Visiting Fellow at Oxford University and an Honorary Fellow at Magdalen College.

In a testament to his family's commitment to positive change, they have established the Riky Rick Foundation for the Promotion of Artivism, honoring the legacy of their son and brother, the now late South African rapper Rikhado “Riky Rick” Makhado through a commitment to supporting artivism and mental health in South Africa.

Kumi has authored and co-authored numerous books, the most recent being Letters To My Mother (2022), a personal and professional memoir that won the HSS 2023 non-fiction award by the National Institute Humanities and Social Sciences.

Payne Distinguished Lecturer, 2023-25
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