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Recognizing the best environmental journalism in the West. Exploring new ways to ensure that it thrives. The Knight-Risser Prize for Western Environmental Journalism.

The Knight-Risser Prize for Western Environmental Journalism recognizes excellence in reporting on environmental issues and stories in the North American West — from Canada through the United States to Mexico.

Related: Read about the environmental journalism legacy of James V. Risser

The prize is open to print, broadcast and online journalists, staffers and freelancers. The $5,000 prize is awarded at the annual Knight-Risser Prize Symposium at Stanford University. The symposium brings together journalists, researchers, policy-makers, advocates, students, and the public to explore new ways to ensure that probing, creative, moving environmental journalism continues to thrive in a rapidly evolving journalism landscape.

The panel of judges for the prize includes journalists, scholars and scientists actively working in the American West. The deadline for entries is mid-March. Please check the entry page for details.

By recognizing the highest-quality environmental reporting about the North American West, the Knight-Risser Prize seeks to inspire journalists in all media to bring sophisticated reporting, solid environmental science, and compelling storytelling to the public, in the context of a rapidly evolving journalism landscape.

The annual Knight-Risser Prize Symposium seeks to forge active collaborative links between environmental research, education, journalism, and policy-making to enrich and support environmental journalism and make environmental research, scholarship and teaching relevant to the real world.

Please see our winners page for examples of some of the most inspiring environmental journalism in the West.

The Knight-Risser Prize is sponsored by the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships and the Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford University, with support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

The John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships
The Knight Fellowships program annually brings 12 outstanding mid-career U.S. journalists and eight journalists from other countries to study and work on innovative journalism at Stanford in a one-year program. More than 700 journalists have studied at Stanford under the program since it began in 1966. Dawn E. Garcia is director of the program. For more information, visit knight.stanford.edu.

The Bill Lane Center for the American West
The Bill Lane Center for the American West was established at Stanford in 2002. In 2005 it was endowed by L. W. "Bill" Lane Jr., former publisher of Sunset magazine. The Center is dedicated to advancing scholarly and public understanding of the past, present, and future of western North America. It supports research, teaching, and reporting about western land and life in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. For more information, visit west.stanford.edu.

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation advances journalism in the digital age and invests in the vitality of communities where the Knight brothers owned newspapers. Since 1950, the foundation has granted more than $400 million to advance quality journalism and freedom of expression. Knight Foundation focuses on projects that promote informed and engaged communities and lead to transformational change. For more information, visit www.knightfoundation.org.

 

The symposium brings together journalists, researchers, policy-makers, advocates, students, and the public to explore new ways to ensure that probing, creative, moving environmental journalism continues to thrive in a rapidly evolving journalism landscape.