“Voices from the Roof of the World Season Two” Wins 2023 John B. Oakes Award

WINNER: “Voices from the Roof of the World” Season Two, Aga Khan University and Aga Khan Agency for Habitat.

Journalists: Andrew Tkach, Abdullah ​Khan, Tolik Godomamad​ov​​, Janyl Jusupjan​, Asmita Shrish, Shanta Nepali, Aibek Baiymbetov, Iskender Aliev, Karim S​h​allwanee​, Tazeen Bari

Judges’ Citation:

"Voices from the Roof of the World," a documentary series on climate change produced by Andrew Tkach and directed by independent filmmakers from Central and South Asia, has won the 2023 John B. Oakes Award for Distinguished Environmental Journalism. The ten-episode season, which aired on Pakistan TV, offers an exceptionally vivid and intimate look at climate change’s impact on both the people and wildlife living in the Himalayas among the world’s highest mountains. Deeply rooted in science and illustrated with dramatic footage of melting landscapes, the series lets the people most directly affected describe how global warming has turned hardship into peril in their communities: disastrous flooding from glacial ice outbursts, deadly avalanches, water shortages, new pestilence, and mass slaughter of livestock by snow leopards desperate for food. Sponsored by Aga Khan University and Aga Khan Agency for Habitat, the series portrays changes that, as one endangered resident explains, will have consequences far beyond this extraordinary region.

FINALIST: The New York Times Magazine for “What Does Sustainable Living Look Like? Maybe Like Uruguay”

Journalist: Noah Gallagher Shannon

Judges’ Citation:

“What can I do?” is a question often asked about climate change. Noah Gallagher Shannon’s piece is an optimistic, clear and accessible response that is a road map for those determined to reduce their carbon footprint. Shannon uses Uruguay as an imaginative lens to show how one small country could decarbonize. The country is powered today by 98 percent renewable energy. The piece is hopeful because it shows how people can change, a process so important to keep us all focused and engaged. Judges were impressed by the quality of thinking about a sustainable future and what practical steps could be taken to get there. “We often picture the future as a kind of growth, a set of possibilities to expand and realize, but maybe it could also be the opposite, a present to reconcile and safeguard,” Shannon wrote. “Part of the reason America has become so paralyzed by climate change is precisely that we’ve failed to acknowledge the limits it imposes — on where we can live, the things we can have, the household we can envision.” This is the journalism of discourse bringing to the front porch a critical conversation about what’s ahead.

FINALIST: “The Last Days of Isle de Jean Charles: A Louisiana Tribe's Struggle to Escape the Rising Sea,” The Times-Picayune and Nola.com

Journalists: Tristan Baurick and Ted Jackson

Judges’ Citation:

As climate change raises sea levels and temperatures around the world, we know that more places will become uninhabitable. That’s why Isle de Jean Charles on the Louisiana coast was held up as a model for the $48 million federal grant and plan to resettle the Native American community that has lived on the island since the 1800’s. Reporter Tristan Baurick and photojournalist Ted Jackson provide an immersive, nuanced glimpse into the island. That includes the ways residents feel betrayed by the state’s erasure of the tribe from the relocation plans. In a piece from the Times-Picayune that is part eulogy for this island community and part critique of the government-sponsored relocation, the team forces us to confront the complexities of the idea of home and what it really means to live on — and eventually flee — the front lines of climate change.

The 2023 John B. Oakes Award Jury:

David Boardman, dean of the School of Media and Communication at Temple University in Philadelphia, chair; Emilia Askari, an environmental journalist and educator; Talia Buford, a reporter for ProPublica covering disparities in environmental impacts; Jeff Burnside, an independent journalist who has spent more than 20 years working as an investigative reporter; Marsha Cooke, vice president and executive producer for ESPN Films and 30 for 30; Susan Goldberg, president and CEO of the GBH Educational Foundation, former editor-in-chief of National Geographic Magazine; Bernardo Motta, associate professor of journalism at Roger Williams University, educator and researcher; Deborah Nelson, Professor of investigative journalism at the University of Maryland; Anna Oakes, an audio producer and editor at Hark Audio, and granddaughter of John B. Oakes; Susanne Rust, an investigative reporter specializing in environmental issues for the Los Angeles Times; Mark Trahant, editor of Indian Country Today, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; Justin Worland, Washington D.C.-based senior correspondent at TIME covering climate change and the intersection of policy, politics and society.

Contact:

Abi Wright
Executive Director, Professional Prizes
212.854.5047
[email protected]