A BBC correspondent set to receive a prestigious award from the University of Arizona School of Journalism is covering the Israel-Hamas war and cannot attend the ceremony, so it has been postponed, UA announced Friday.
The ceremony to award Lyse Doucet with the John Peter and Anna Catherine Zenger Award for Press Freedom, which was set for Oct. 20 in Tucson, will be rescheduled for sometime in 2024.
“The very reason she won the award — advancing the free press and the people’s right to know — is the reason she cannot participate at this time,” said Michael Chihak, chair of the school’s Journalism Advisory Council.
Doucet, BBC’s chief international correspondent, was chosen for the honor in recognition of her international reporting on human rights.
The UA journalism program has awarded the annual Zenger Award for Press Freedom since 1954 to journalists who fight for freedom of the press and the people’s right to know.
Past Zenger Award winners included Christiane Amanpour, Carmen Aristegui, Dean Baquet, Walter Cronkite and Katharine Graham.
The award is named for a husband-and-wife team of pioneering journalists. John Peter was editor of the New York Weekly Journal in 1734 when he was jailed by British colonial authorities on charges of seditious libel. He had criticized the corrupt administration of New York’s governor, William Cosby. While Zenger was imprisoned, Anna Catherine continued to publish the newspaper.
John Peter Zenger’s subsequent trial and acquittal is considered a landmark case in the history of freedom of the press, helping to lay the foundation for the First Amendment.
