---

On June 5, the German Marshall Fund awarded the 2006 Peter R. Weitz Journalism Prize for excellence in reporting on European affairs to The Los Angeles Times’ Sebastian Rotella and Philip Shishkin of the Wall Street Journal. Rotella, Paris bureau chief for the LA Times, received the $10,000 senior prize for a series of articles focusing on “Europe’s Restive Muslims.” The $5,000 junior prize for journalists 35 years old and younger went to Shishkin, now based in Istanbul, for his insightful work covering the politics and people of Eastern Europe and the Balkans.
The event featured a keynote address by the Latvian president Vaira Vike-Freiberga. In her remarks, the president emphasized the important role journalists play in upholding democracy. Journalists share and evaluate information, providing a feedback link between decision makers and the population. She also pointed to the crucial role foreign correspondents play in the transatlantic relationship, and invited journalists to come to Latvia for this year’s NATO summit, which will be held in Riga in November. President Vike-Freiberga highlighted the actual and symbolic relevance that hosting the NATO summit holds for her country, one of the newest NATO member states —demonstrating how far Latvia has come since regaining its independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The Weitz Prize was established in 1999 to honor the memory of Peter R. Weitz, former director of programs at GMF’s Washington headquarters, for his interest in promoting coverage of European affairs by American journalists. Past winners of the senior prize include Craig Whitlock and Peter Finn of the The Washington Post, Roger Cohen of The New York Times and James Kitfield of the National Journal.  The senior prize is open to all journalists working for American publications; the junior prize is for journalists 35 years old and under.  Winners are selected by a jury of distinguished American and European journalists.