In Berlin this evening (1 June 2016), tribute was paid to the winners of this year’s Arthur F. Burns Prize for Journalists on behalf of Federal Foreign Minister Frank‑Walter Steinmeier. The awards were presented at the annual dinner of the Arthur F. Burns Fellowship Programme, in the atrium of the Deutsche Bank in Berlin. Canadian Defence Minister Harjit Singh Sajjan is the guest speaker.

The Arthur F. Burns Prize was established in 1994 by the Federal Foreign Office and the Board of Trustees of the International Journalists’ Programmes e.V. (IJP), and is awarded annually to one German and one American alumnus of the Arthur F. Burns Fellowship Programme for outstanding reporting on political, economic or social issues in the other country or on German-American relations. In addition, the IJP Board of Trustees annually presents the George F. Kennan Commentary Award for the best German commentary on transatlantic issues. Each winner will receive 2000 euros.

This year’s Burns Prize is awarded to the foreign-policy correspondent at the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Marie‑Astrid Langer for her feature “Amerika sperrt seine Kinder weg” (America is locking away its children) published on 18 December 2015.

The George F. Kennan Award is to be presented to Nicolas Richter, long‑serving correspondent at the Süddeutsche Zeitung for his editorial “Trumps Ernte” (Trump’s harvest) published in the newspaper on 10 September 2015.

Background information:

The Arthur F. Burns Fellowship Programme, named after the deceased US Ambassador to Germany and former Federal Reserve Board Chairman, has been organised by the International Journalists’ Programmes since 1988. Each year, the programme enables 10 German and 10 American or Canadian journalists to work for several months on the editorial staff of a renowned media organisation in the other country. The patrons of the programme are the Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to the United States and the Canadian and the American Ambassador to Germany. The programme is sponsored by the German Government, as well as by German and North American companies.