Winners of 2026 Kurt Schork Awards announced

The annual prizes are awarded in memory of American freelancer Kurt Schork who was killed in a rebel ambush while reporting for Reuters in Sierra Leone in 2000. 

The Freelancer prize was awarded to French journalists and photographers Pierre Terraz and Paul Boyer for a series of articles on people living on the margins of society in Indonesia.

They judges praised the pair’s painstaking work exposing the criminalisation of homosexuality, the activities of the religious police and public flogging for offences against Sharia law.

The runner up in this category was French photojournalist Robin Tutenges for his “grippingly written and extremely well explained” stories from the under-reported insurgency in the northwestern Amhara region of Ethiopia.

The award for Local Reporter was won by Nigerian journalist Abdullah Tijani, who was praised for his “outstanding bravery” in reporting those forced to work in illicit gold mining in Zamfara state.

“These were powerful stories, written in a hostile environment with a distinctive voice, as Tijani dug deeper and deeper into the story of ‘blood gold’ and the links across Nigeria’s borders to the arms industry,” the judges said.

Azerbaijani journalist Elnara Gasimova was the runner-up for her reporting from a prison in her country, which the judges said “displayed immense courage and shone a light on deeply disturbing aspects of life behind bars.”

The News Fixer award went to Ukrainian Alla Didur, for her “outstanding work, bravery and compassion” in helping cover the war in Ukraine. Didur worked regularly for the New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer and Le Monde.

The judges noted in particular her invaluable situational awareness in helping to keep correspondents safe from drone and missile attacks.

The runner-up was Ukrainian Kateryna Hatsenko. She has worked with the South Korean media production company Docu and News Korea, Canada’s Globe and Mail and The Observer in the U.K.

The judges praised her brave and resourceful work helping foreign correspondents access front-line cities and trenches and said she had enabled South Korean journalists to gain access to captured North Korean troops  fighting on the Russian side in Ukraine.

The winners will each receive a cash prize of US$10,000, and the runners-up US$5,000.

The Memorial Fund works to maintain awareness of the work of  journalists who reporting dangerous conditions on conflict, corruption, injustice and human rights.

Full details of the awards are here:  https://ksmfund.org/2026-winners/

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