The Knight-Risser Prize
for Western Environmental Journalism
The Knight-Risser Prize and Symposium are being reimagined to better encourage coverage of important environmental issues affecting the West. Please follow @JSKstanford on Twitter for more information and announcements.
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Eligibility and How to Enter

The Knight-Risser Prize is given for journalism in any media that best illuminates an environmental issue or story in western Canada, the United States or Mexico. Entries are not limited to journalists from western news organizations.

The Knight-Risser prize places a premium on stories that expose undiscovered or covered-up problems, explain detailed solutions in ways that can be put to use, and help readers understand the broader significance of the issues being covered, beyond the immediate details of the stories at hand.

The North American West, for the purposes of this award, includes the United States west of the Mississippi River, Canada west of Ontario, including Nunavut, and all of Mexico.

Eligibility and Selection
Journalists working for U.S., Canadian or Mexican newspapers, magazines, television, radio, and online sites accessible to the general public are eligible to apply, as are freelancers.

Those whose work appears in publications or programs connected to government agencies, advocacy organizations, or to business or trade organizations with a financial stake in environmental issues, are not eligible.

Entries must be predominantly about an environmental subject occurring in or affecting the North American West, and must have been published, broadcast or posted during the calendar year of the current prize. Series that began in one year and ended in another are eligible but may be entered only once.

The Knight-Risser Prize administrators and steering committee are the final authority for determining whether an entry is eligible. The entry fee of any entrant deemed ineligible will be refunded.

Entry Form



The Knight-Risser prize places a premium on stories that expose undiscovered or covered-up problems, explain detailed solutions in ways that can be put to use, and help readers understand the broader significance of the issues being covered, beyond the immediate details of the stories at hand.

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WINNERS OF THE KNIGHT-RISSER PRIZE
2017
Hell and High Water
Texas Tribune, ProPublica
2016
Pumped Dry
The Desert Sun and USA Today
2015
Big Oil, Bad Air
CPI, InsideClimate News, The Weather Channel
2014
Sea Change
The Seattle Times
2013
The Killing Agency
The Sacramento Bee
2012
Perilous Passages
High Country News
2011
Dry Times
5280 Magazine
2010
Chain Saw Scouting
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
2009
Logging and Landslides:
What Went Wrong?
The Seattle Times
2008
Climate Change Hits Home
San Antonio Express-News
2007
Blighted Homeland
The Los Angeles Times
2006
Squeezing Water from a Stone
High Country News