New York Times Chairman, CNN Correspondent and Two Digital Trailblazers to Receive Top International Awards

NEW YORK, May 24, 2018 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The International Center for Journalists will honor Arthur Sulzberger Jr., chairman of The New York Times Company, along with CNN correspondent Nima Elbagir and digital trailblazers from the Philippines and Venezuela at its Awards Dinner on Nov. 8.

The annual event in Washington, D.C., which attracts nearly 600 media luminaries and supporters, recognizes journalists whose work has made an outstanding impact on society.

This year's honorees:

• Sulzberger will receive the ICFJ Founders Award for Excellence in Journalism for a lifetime commitment to the highest professional standards. During a quarter-century as The New York Times publisher, he steered the paper through turbulent times and shaped it into a digital powerhouse for domestic and international news. Sulzberger was publisher of The New York Times from 1992 until January 2018. He has served as chairman since 1997. During his 25 years as publisher, he led the paper's transformation into a multiplatform juggernaut with 3.5 million paid subscribers, including 2.5 million digital customers. Under his leadership, the Times invested in high-quality reporting, international coverage and newsroom innovation while many newsrooms cut back. The Times won 61 Pulitzer Prizes during his tenure.
  
  
• Nima Elbagir, a senior international correspondent for CNN, will receive ICFJ's Excellence in International Reporting Award. She travels frequently to Africa, often at great personal risk, to tell riveting stories about humanitarian crises. She went to Libya to expose the African slave trade, to the Democratic Republic of Congo to document child labor in mining cobalt, a mineral used in cellphones, and to Liberia to report on the devastating effects of Ebola. Elbagir joined CNN in 2011 as a Johannesburg-based correspondent before moving to the Nairobi bureau and then to London. She grew up in Sudan and London, and is fluent in Arabic and English.

Two courageous digital news pioneers will receive the Knight International Journalism Award, which is supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation:

• Maria Ressa, an intrepid editor and media innovator, has shed light on the Philippine government's bloody war on drugs and on thousands of extrajudicial killings. A longtime CNN correspondent, Ressa founded the popular website Rappler in 2012. The news site is at the forefront of investigative reporting in the Philippines. It was an early platform for media innovation, such as social media and crowdsourcing for news distribution. In response to Rappler's reporting, President Rodrigo Duterte and his government have targeted the news site, making it a major focus of its attack on press freedom.
  
  
• Joseph Poliszuk is co-founder and editor-in-chief of Armando.info, a website dedicated to investigative journalism in Venezuela, a country teetering on the verge of bankruptcy and political collapse. Poliszuk leads a team of reporters who has produced major investigations revealing financial misdeeds and corruption. He also coordinated Venezuela's participation in the Panama Papers project, the groundbreaking investigative journalism project that revealed the hidden wealth of global elites. Their reporting led to the arrests of at least a half-dozen influential Venezuelans.

CNN lead political anchor Wolf Blitzer will be master of ceremonies at the ICFJ awards gala ? Washington, D.C.'s top international journalism event.

To learn about the Awards Dinner or purchase a ticket, please visit www.icfj.org/dinner or contact Andria Moore at [email protected].

ICFJ empowers journalists to deliver trustworthy news essential for vibrant societies. Working at the nexus of journalism and technology, we build the expertise and storytelling skills of reporters worldwide. We promote high-impact journalism that leads to better lives.

SOURCE International Center for Journalists