Arthur Ross Media Award
Arthur Ross Media Award
for Distinguished Reporting and Analysis on Foreign Affairs
The American Academy of Diplomacy annually honors one outstanding reporter and one distinguished commentator with its two Arthur Ross Awards for Distinguished Reporting and Analysis on Foreign Affairs. The awards, endowed by and given in honor of the late Arthur Ross, seek to recognize individuals or groups of individuals (e.g., a news bureau) whose reporting and analysis on diplomacy and foreign affairs is making a singular contribution to public understanding of the critical role played by diplomacy in the furtherance of America’s foreign policy interests. One award is given to a journalist/reporter and another to a commentator/columnist. Each award includes a cash stipend of $5,000.
Recipient - 2024
Evan Gershkovich is a Wall Street Journal reporter who was detained in Russia on March 29, 2023, while doing his job as a journalist. He was freed Aug. 1, 2024, as part of the largest and most complex East-West prisoner swap since the Cold War. He is the American-born son of Soviet-era emigres to the U.S. Evan learned Russian from his parents and built a career as a journalist focused on the region. He joined the Journal in January 2022 and before that reported from Moscow for Agence France Press and the Moscow Times.
Recipient - 2024
David Ignatius joined The Post in 1986 as editor of its Sunday Outlook section. In 1990 he became foreign editor, and in 1993, assistant managing editor for business news. He began writing his column in 1998 and continued even during a three-year stint as executive editor of the International Herald Tribune in Paris. Earlier in his career, Ignatius was a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, covering at various times the steel industry, the Departments of State and Justice, the CIA, the Senate and the Middle East.
Ignatius writes a twice-a-week foreign affairs column for The Washington Post. Ignatius has written 12 spy novels: Phantom Orbit (2024), The Paladin (2020), The Quantum Spy, (2017), The Director, (2014), Bloodmoney (2011), The Increment (2009), Body of Lies (2007), The Sun King (1999), A Firing Offense (1997), The Bank of Fear (1994), SIRO (1991), and Agents of Innocence (1987). Body of Lies was made into a 2008 film starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe.
Ignatius grew up in Washington, D.C. and studied Social Studies at Harvard College and economics at Kings College, Cambridge. He lives in Washington with his wife and has three daughters.
Honors and Awards: 2018 Finalist team, Pulitzer Prize for Public Service; 2018 George Polk Award; 2010 Urbino International Press Award; 2013 Overseas Press Club Award for Foreign Affairs Commentary; Lifetime Achievement Award, International Committee for Foreign Journalists; Legion D’Honneur awarded by the French government; 2004 Edward Weintal Prize; 2000 Gerald Loeb Award for Commentary.
