ARI RATH PRIZE FOR CRITICAL JOURNALISM

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ARI RATH PRIZE FOR CRITICAL JOURNALISM 2021

Greeting: Franz Vranitzky, Former Federal Chancellor, Founding and Honorary President of the Kreisky Forum
Jury's Reasoning: Gertraud Borea d'Olmo, Secretary General of the Kreisky Forum

Award winner: Thomas Seifert, Deputy Editor-in-Chief Wiener Zeitung
Laudator Oliver Rathkolb, Professor at the Institute for Contemporary History at the University of WieN

Prize of honour: Gideon Levy, columnist and member of the editorial board of the daily newspaper Ha'aretz
Introducer: Alexandra Föderl-Schmid, Deputy Editor-in-Chief Süddeutsche Zeitung

Music: Isabel Frey, Yiddish singer and social justice activist

The „Ari Rath Prize for Critical Journalism“ was established on the basis of a private initiative to honour journalists who have made outstanding contributions to critical reporting on flight, expulsion and asylum that is committed to upholding human rights, in the spirit of the renowned former editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post, who passed away in January 2017. A jury of experts chaired by Gertraud Auer Borea d'Olmo, Secretary General of the Bruno Kreisky Forum for International Dialogue and close confidant of Ari Rath, unanimously nominated Thomas Seifert for this year's „Ari Rath Prize for Critical Journalism“. The „Ari Rath Prize of Honour“ was unanimously awarded to Gideon Levy.

Thomas Seifert is known to many readers as a foreign policy expert and economics specialist. The current deputy editor-in-chief of the Wiener Zeitung previously travelled to numerous crisis regions of the world as a reporter for News, but also for Welt am Sonntag and the Sunday Telegraph and has written impressive reports: whether from the Ebola ward of the hospital in Gulu, Uganda, in 2000, or from Sierra Leone about child soldiers or the war in Chechnya. He reported courageously and with commitment from Afghanistan and in 2003 from the Iraq war in the midst of the US bombardment.
In addition to the overall assessment of the crisis situation, Seifert always places the fate of the people affected at the centre of his articles, reports and commentaries. It should also be added that he always emphasises the human perspective of the individuals plagued by wars, flight, displacement and natural disasters, thus giving a voice to the persecuted in this world.

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

Isabel Frey // Revolutionary Yiddish Music // Vienna

Members of the jury:

Gertraud Borea d'Olmo, Secretary General of the Bruno Kreisky Forum
Fritz Hausjell, Media historian, Institute for Journalism Studies, University of Vienna
Rubina Möhring, President Reporters Without Borders
Oliver Rathkolb, Historian, Institute for Contemporary History, University of Vienna

Previous award winners:

2018
Alexandra Föderl-Schmid, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Süddeutsche Zeitung since July 2020. Before that, she was correspondent for Israel and the Palestinian territories. Before that, she was editor-in-chief and later co-editor-in-chief of the Austrian daily newspaper Der Standard and the news portal derStandard.at for ten years.

2019
Silvana Meixner, Heimat-Fremde-Heimat, ORF
Prize of honour: Helmut Brandstätter, KURIER

2020
Irene Brickner, DER STANDARD
Prize of honour: Anneliese Rohrer, columnist DIE PRESSE

With the kind support of Vienna Energy