Chanda Nets Award for Asia-Pacific Press

Honored for his keen understanding of the Asia-Pacific region and his investigative reporting skills, Nayan R. Chanda—former editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER)—received the 2005 Shorenstein Award for Journalism last week at the Kennedy School of Government (KSG).

Recognizing a journalist who has done distinguished work on the Asia-Pacific region, the award is given jointly by the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at the KSG and the Walter H. Shorenstein Forum for Asia Pacific Studies at Stanford University’s Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), said Alex S. Jones, the Center’s director.

Thirty years of reporting has allowed Chanda to witness historic events such as the arrival of North Vietnamese tanks at Saigon’s presidential palace and the 1971 Bangladesh independence movement, recounted Chanda, who currently works at Yale.

His interview experience is just as eclectic, ranging from villagers to presidents and prime ministers across Asia. Chanda became one of the first Asian journalists to interview an American president when he spoke with former president Ronald Reagan in 1984.

In 1969 Chanda wrote his first newspaper article for The Statesman, an Indian newspaper, and joined FEER as a full-time reporter in 1974, he said. After traveling to Washington D.C. and New York, he returned to Hong Kong in 1992 as deputy editor of FEER, where he became editor four years later.

“It’s kind of appropriate in the 21st century that we honor someone with a Bengali background, originally from India, who established his career on the edge of China, and who is now in Connecticut...He is truly a global citizen,” said Director of Southeast Asia Forum at APARC Donald K. Emmerson, one of the judges from Stanford.

Both Jones and Emmerson praised Chanda’s extensive journalism career as well his acclaimed book on the second Indo-China war “Brother Enemy: The War after the War.”

“He was an eyewitness to history, his reporting was always dispassionate,” Emmerson said. “He never got on a hobbyhorse, this was not Hunter Thompson, this was real serious journalism.”

Chanda’s award recognizes this skill in relaying the stories of the Asia-Pacific region to the world at large.

“Every year, we scan the journalists that have made a real impact on the transmission of information and analysis about Asia to audiences worldwide...in particular audiences in the U.S.,” Emmerson said.

These days, Chanda has transitioned from his Asian focus at FEER towards a more global scope as director of publication at the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, a position he took up in 2001. He is also the editor of YaleGlobal Online, a Yale magazine about globalization.

While Chanda has moved away from the daily grind of reporting, the lessons of his earlier days stay with him.

“Whether you are writing for a global audience or local audience, understanding the local is very important,” he said. “Understanding history and the local context is very important to doing good journalism.”

—Staff writer Lulu Zhou can be reached at luluzhou@fas.harvard.edu.