Senior journalist and NDTV India’s senior executive editor Ravish Kumar has been conferred the Ramon Magsaysay Award for 2019, said to be Asia’s highest honour, for “harnessing journalism to give voice to the voiceless”. The awards will be presented at a ceremony in Manila, Philippines on September 9.
He is one of five recipients of the award this year. The others are Ko Swe Win from Myanmar, Angkhana Neelapaijit from Thailand, Raymundo Pujante Cayabyab from the Philippines and Jong-Ki Kim from South Korea.
Ravish, who joined NDTV in 1996, anchors ‘Prime Time’ on NDTV India.
The Board of Trustees called Ravish a “sober, incisive, and well-informed” anchor. “He does not dominate his guests but affords them the chance to express themselves. He does not balk, however, at calling the highest officials to account or criticizing media and the state of public discourse in the country; for this reason, he has been harassed and threatened by rabid partisans of one kind or another,” it said.
The citation by the Ramon Magsaysay Award foundation states, “His more important distinction, however, comes from the kind of journalism he represents. In a media environment threatened by an interventionist state, toxic with jingoist partisans, trolls and purveyors of “fake news,” and where the competition for market ratings has put the premium on “media personalities,” “tabloidization,” and audience-pandering sensationalism, Ravish has been most vocal on insisting that the professional values of sober, balanced, fact-based reporting be upheld in practice.”
“Striving for a people-based journalism, he calls his newsroom 'the people's newsroom’,” it added.
In the citation, the board of trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation said that it recognises his “unfaltering commitment to a professional, ethical journalism of the highest standards; his moral courage in standing up for truth, integrity, and independence; and his principled belief that it is in giving full and respectful voice to the voiceless, in speaking truth bravely yet soberly to power, that journalism fulfils its noblest aims to advance democracy.”