Ari-Rath Prize

Carolin Emcke, born 1967, was an editor at Der Spiegel and travelled to many crisis regions as a foreign editor. 2003/04 Visiting Lecturer for Political Theory at Yale University. From 2007 to 2014 international reporter for DIE ZEIT, since 2014 columnist for the weekend edition of the Süddeutsche Zeitung and freelance journalist. Since the 2004/2005 season, curator and moderator of the monthly discussion event „Streitraum“ at de.r Schaubühne Berlin, since 2023 she has been curator and moderator of the SZ podcast „In aller Ruhe“. Recent publications include "Respekt ist zumutbar. Texte zu unserer Gegenwart", Frankfurt/Main 2025 „Für den Zweifel. Conversations with Thomas Strässle“, Zurich 2022, „Was wahr ist. On violence and climate“, Göttingen 2024. Awards (selection): Otto Brenner Prize for Critical Journalism (2010), German Reporter Prize in the category »Best Reportage« (2010), voted Journalist of the Year (2010), Johann Heinrich Merck Prize of the German Academy for Language and Poetry for her complete works (2014), Lessing Prize of the Free State of Saxony (2015), Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (2016), Glas der Vernunft (2024), Mercator Professorship University of Duisburg-Essen (2024).

Photo: ©Andreas Labes

Maria Sterkl, born near Krems an der Donau, studied Business Administration in Vienna, Parma and Sønderborg. From 2002 onwards, she worked as a journalist, initially with Niederösterreichische Nachrichten (NÖN), then Salzburger Nachrichten, and finally with Der Standard in Vienna, initially covering economics, then culture, news, and for a long time, political journalism. Since 2020, she has been a correspondent in Jerusalem, also for Frankfurter Rundschau, the Funke Mediengruppe, and Der Standard. She is a freelance author for various publications, including Die Zeit. Her main focus areas include Israel and Palestine, the state of democracy and human rights, economics and social affairs, culture, and good, simple food.

Palestine-Israel Journal, Hillel Schenker and Ziad Abu Zayyad, Co-Editors - 2024
The Palestine-Israel Journal is published by Middle East Publications, a non-profit organisation founded in 1994 by two prominent Palestinian and Israeli journalists, Ziad Abu Zayyad and Victor Cygielman (1926-2007). It was launched simultaneously with the initial stages of the Oslo Peace Process, with the aim of fostering dialogue between civil societies on both sides and broadening the base of support for the peace process. It was clear from the outset that alongside the institutional efforts of Palestinians and Israelis, avenues of communication needed to be opened for academics and other intellectuals, opinion shapers and policymakers, grassroots organisations and activists to voice their views and engage in public debate for a democratic and just resolution of the conflict.

Christa Zöchling is an Austrian journalist and publicist. She worked for the news magazine profil from 1992 to 2023. Zöchling studied history and German language and literature in Graz and Vienna. She taught German courses for foreigners at the University of Vienna and worked on contemporary history projects. In 1989, she joined the Arbeiterzeitung (AZ) as a trainee shortly after it was sold by the SPÖ and taken over by Hans Schmid. After AZ ceased publication at the end of October 1991, Zöchling worked briefly for the Kurier and was finally hired by profil as domestic policy editor in 1992. Zöchling focussed on Austrian domestic politics and repeatedly dealt with the topic of right-wing populism. She has published two standard works on Jörg Haider in book form and also writes occasionally for anthologies and other publications such as Emma. After Zöchling described FPÖ sympathisers in the 7 September 2015 issue of Profil as „the ugliest people in Vienna, shapeless, shapeless bodies, strawy, dull hair, without a cut, unkempt, glitter T-shirts that stretch, tracksuit bottoms, leggings. Pimply skin. Bad teeth, worn-out shoes“, profil.at was reprimanded by the Austrian Press Council for violating point 7 of the Code of Honour for the Austrian press (protection against blanket denigration and discrimination). Zöchling regularly gives lectures, for example in the Department of Gender Studies at the University of Innsbruck.

Noa Landau is the Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Haaretz, the country's oldest leading daily newspaper, and a member of the newspaper's editorial board. Previously, she served as the paper's head of news and as an editor for the English edition of Haaretz. Before joining Haaretz in 2009, Landau worked as a news reporter and editor for various Israeli news outlets, including Galei-Tzahal, Channel 10, and Maariv, and was a founding member of the country's first women journalists' forum. She was a Journalist Fellow at the Reuters Institute, sponsored by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, in 2016, where she researched the rise of news blackouts in Israel.

After studying sociology in Douala, Simon Inou co-founded „Le Messager des Jeunes“, the first youth newspaper in Cameroon, where he remained as editor until 1995. At the same time, he worked for the then weekly newspaper „Le Messager“. Inou moved to Austria in 1995. There he was editor-in-chief of Radio Afrika International from 1998 to 2005. From 2000 to 2005 he also worked for the Wiener Zeitung, and from 2004 he was also co-founder and editor-in-chief of Afrikanet. In 2005, Inou founded M-Media, an association for the promotion of intercultural media work, which campaigns for more ethnic diversity in Austrian media organisations and an appropriate representation of immigrants in the Austrian mainstream media. Since 2008, M-Media has organised an annual media fair at which ethnic media in Austria are given the opportunity to present themselves. From 2008 to 2013 and in 2014/2015, M-Media published the Austrian media handbook Migration and Diversity. From 2007, M-Media employees designed an editorial page on Austrian topics every week with editors from the daily newspaper Die Presse. In 2008, M-Media received the „Förderungspreis für Projekte des interkulturellen Dialogs 2008“ from the Ministry of Education for this project. In addition, special training and further education programmes enabled migrants to gain a foothold in Austrian journalism. In October 2012, he founded the Lichtfarben picture agency, whose aim is to facilitate the media illustration of migration-related content for Austrian media. In 2007, together with Béatrice Achaleke, Inou initiated the BlackAustria communication campaign to reduce prejudice against black people living in Austria. In summer 2009, Inou criticised the Eskimo advertising campaign with the slogan „I will Mohr“ as racist, whereupon the ice cream producer had the advertising posters removed. Inou is frequently present in the media in articles, commentaries and interviews on topics relating to Africans in Austria.

Photo: ©Private

Vanessa Spanbauer's journalistic work can be found on platforms such as taz, BIBER, ORF, gotv, Vice/Noisey, enemy.at & derStandard.at. She is currently also editor-in-chief of the magazine „fresh - Black Austrian Lifestyle“ and a member of the editorial team at the feminist magazine an.schläge. She spent a short time at an agency for digital communication & PR before moving into public relations at the ZARA Civil Courage & Anti-Racism Work association in 2020. Since the end of 2015, she has been working on the children of Austrian and African-American GIs in the historical research project „Lost in Administration“. In 2018, she was also entrusted with the „Blackening Vienna“ project, which focuses on the presence of people with African roots in Vienna since 1918. She is currently also working as a historian and is preparing an exhibition for the Volkskundemuseum Wien for the end of 2021. She is also researching a project for the Vienna Museum of Technology, which is dedicated to the reappraisal of colonial artefacts in Austrian federal museums.

Photo: ©Akos Burg

Gideon Levy is a columnist for Haaretz and a member of the newspaper's editorial board. Levy joined Haaretz in 1982 and served as the newspaper's deputy editor-in-chief for four years. He is the author of the weekly Twilight Zone column, which covers the Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip over the past 25 years, as well as an author of political editorials for the paper. Levy was awarded the Euro-Med Journalist Prize in 2008 and the Leipzig Freedom Prize in 2001; the Israeli Journalists Union Prize in 1997; and the Association for Human Rights in Israel Prize for 1996; in 2016, jointly with the Lutheran pastor of Bethlehem, Mitri Raheb, he received the Olof Palme Prize for „his fight against occupation and violence“. His new book, „The Punishment of Gaza“, has just been published by Verso Publishing House in London and New York.

Photo: ©Private

Thomas Seifert is familiar to many readers as a foreign policy expert and economics specialist. The current deputy editor-in-chief of the Wiener Zeitung previously worked for News, as well as Welt am Sonntag and The Sunday Telegraph, reporting from numerous crisis regions around the world and writing impressive pieces: whether from the Ebola ward of a hospital in Gulu, Uganda, in 2000, or from Sierra Leone on child soldiers, or on the war in Chechnya. He bravely and dedicatedly reported from Afghanistan and in 2003 from the Iraq War, in the midst of US bombardments. Alongside an overall assessment of the crisis situation, Seifert always puts the fate of the affected people at the centre of his articles, reports, and commentaries. In addition, it should be mentioned that he always highlights the human perspective of individuals afflicted by wars, displacement, expulsions, and natural disasters, thereby giving a voice to the persecuted in this world.

Photo: ©Pamela Russmann

Anneliese Rohrer has been commenting on Austrian domestic politics for over 45 years. After studying history in Vienna, she spent three years as a university assistant in Auckland. Back in Austria, she started working for the Austrian daily newspaper Die Presse in 1974. In 1987, she became head of the domestic policy department. In 2001, during the Schüssel I government, she was transferred to the foreign policy department by the then editor-in-chief of Die Presse, Andreas Unterberger, which she headed until her compulsory retirement after reaching the statutory retirement age in 2005. In 2005, the book „Charakter Fehler. Die Österreicher und ihre Politiker“ was published in 2005, followed by the book „Ende des Gehorsams“ in 2011. From 2005 to 2009, she wrote weekly for the Kurier. Rohrer has been a columnist for the daily newspaper Die Presse since 2009. She collaborated with her daughter on the documentary films „Fatal Promises“ (Human Trafficking, 2013) and „Back to the Fatherland“ (Young Israelis in Vienna and Berlin, 2018). She also taught journalism at the Vienna University of Applied Sciences from 2005 to 2012. Rohrer also became known to a wider public through her regular participation in discussion programmes on Austrian television and the radio station Ö1.

Photo: C. Stadler/Bwag

Irene Brickner studied political science and sociology at the University of Vienna. She has worked for the daily newspaper Neue AZ, the NÖN and the ORF, among others. She worked as a freelancer for profil and Falter. Irene Brickner has been an editor and commentator in the Chronicle/Panorama section since 2005 and has also been chief editor at Der Standard since 2018. She often comments on human rights issues and mainly covers asylum and immigration law issues, gender equality policy and environmental topics in her reports. In her articles, Brickner shines the spotlight on the dark side, on those people in Austria who are disadvantaged in our society. In her work, she is committed to integration and the amendment of the Aliens Act. Irene Brickner has received numerous awards, including the Dr Karl Renner Journalism Prize in the online category for „Brickner's Blog“ on derStandard.at. In 2007, together with Johanna Ruzicka, she published the book „Heiße Zeiten: 50 Antworten auf brennende Fragen zum Klimawandel“. In 2012, her „Schwarzbuch Menschenrechte“ was published by Residenz Verlag.

Photo: ©Heidi Seywald

Throughout his career, Helmut Brandstätter has consistently demonstrated that liberal democracy must be kept dynamic and protected from abuse through open and professional journalistic analysis. Brandstätter is one of those rare media figures who, even in seemingly aimless and highly emotional times, with populist to extremist discussions about flight, migration and terror, uphold principles such as journalistic quality and open intervention in favour of a functioning democratic culture. Particularly on the 100th anniversary of the proclamation of the democratic republic in Austria, this award is a signal against authoritarian political tendencies, attempts at media censorship, fake news and inflammatory tabloid journalism.
Award Ceremony: 6 May 2019, Bruno Kreisky Forum

Silvana Meixner came to Vienna in 1986 and joined the ORF in 1988, where she helped establish the minorities department. On 3 December 1993, she was severely injured by a letter bomb. Undeterred, she continued her journalistic work for refugees, ethnic minorities and human rights. At the ORF, she built up a team of first-class journalists, whose influence now extends far beyond the core editorial team of "Heimat Fremde Heimat“.

Alexandra Föderl-Schmid, born in 1971, has been with the Süddeutsche Zeitung since November 2017, reporting on Israel and the Palestinian territories. Before that, she was editor-in-chief and co-publisher of Der Standard and the news portal www.derStandard.at. Föderl-Schmid has received the Kurt Vorhofer Prize and the Verfassungspreis. She was instrumental in the re-establishment of the Austrian Press Council.
Awards ceremony: 3 May 2018, ORF Radio Kulturhaus

Photo: ©Friedrich Bungert/SZ-Photo