Judging Panel

Dean Baquet, Executive Editor, Local Investigations Fellowship

The New York Times

Dean Baquet is executive editor of the local investigations fellowship at the New York Times, after having served eight years as the executive editor of the news organization, three years as its managing editor and seven years as Washington bureau chief. Baquet also was editor and managing editor of the Los Angeles Times during a seven-year stint away from New York. His early years at the New York Times included reporting and editing roles, beginning as a Metro reporter in 1990. Baquet began his career at the Times-Picayune in New Orleans and the Chicago Tribune. He was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting in 1988, when he led a team in documenting corruption in the Chicago City Council. Baquet majored in English at Columbia University from 1974 to 1978.

Sewell Chan, Editor in Chief

The Texas Tribune

Sewell Chan joined the Texas Tribune as editor in chief in October 2021. Previously he was a deputy managing editor and then the editorial page editor at the Los Angeles Times, where he oversaw coverage that was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 2021. Chan worked at the New York Times from 2004 to 2018, as a metro reporter, Washington correspondent, deputy Op-Ed editor and international news editor.  He began his career as a local reporter at the Washington Post in 2000. A child of immigrants, Chan was the first in his family to graduate from college. He has a degree in social studies from Harvard and a master’s in political science from Oxford, where he studied on a British Marshall scholarship. He serves on the boards of Columbia Journalism Review, Freedom House, Henry Luce Foundation, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and Texas Lyceum. He was elected to the Pulitzer Prize board in 2022 and joined the national judging panel of the Livingston Awards in 2023.

Gina Chua, Executive Editor

Semafor

Gina Chua is executive editor at Semafor, a global news startup. Prior to joining Semafor, she was Executive Editor at Reuters, where she oversaw newsroom operations, logistics, budgets, safety and security, and worked with technology teams to develop newsroom tools, among other responsibilities. Gina was also the editor-in-chief of the South China Morning Post and The Asian Wall Street Journal in Hong Kong; a deputy managing editor at The Wall Street Journal in New York; a foreign correspondent in Singapore, Manila and Hanoi; and a television and radio journalist in Singapore. A native of Singapore, she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the University of Chicago and a master’s in journalism from Columbia University. 

Lynette Clemetson, Director

Wallace House Center for Journalists, University of Michigan

Lynette Clemetson is director of the Wallace House Center for Journalists at the University of Michigan, home of the Knight-Wallace Fellowships for Journalists and the Livingston Awards. She was previously senior director of strategy and content initiatives. Clemetson was director of digital strategy for Pew Center on the States and was the founding managing editor of the Root website for the Washington Post Co. She worked for several years as a reporter, as a domestic correspondent for the New York Times, and for Newsweek Magazine, first as an East Asia correspondent based in Hong Kong, then as a national correspondent based in Washington. Clemetson is an active advocate for press freedom and the safety of journalists, and she serves on the board of Forbidden Stories. She is also a member of the steering committee of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and serves on the advisory boards for PBS FRONTLINE and the Robin Toner Prizes for Political Reporting at Syracuse University.

Nancy Gibbs, Director

Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, Harvard

Nancy Gibbs is the Edward R. Murrow Professor of Practice and Director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. She was formerly editor in chief of TIME, the first woman to hold the position, and is the award-winning author of more cover stories than any writer in TIME’s 100-year history. She has interviewed five U.S. presidents and is the co-author, with Michael Duffy, of two New York Times best-selling presidential histories, including The President’s Club: Inside the World’s Most Exclusive Fraternity. Gibbs graduated from Yale, summa cum laude, with honors in history, and has a degree in politics and philosophy from Oxford, where she was a Marshall scholar. She is an independent director of Column, a public benefit corporation launched by former Harvard students with a goal of providing sustainable revenue to local newspapers and making public information more accessible.

Lynn Novick

Documentary Filmmaker

Lynn Novick is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, widely known for her work with Ken Burns. She has made several landmark documentaries about American life, culture, history, politics and sports for more than 30 years including Baseball (1994), The War (2007), and The Vietnam War (2017). Novick began her career as a production assistant for New York public television station WNET and moved to Burns’ production company as an associate producer of the 1990 series of The Civil War. Most recently, Novick made her directorial debut with her documentary, College Behind Bars, which tells the story of a group of incarcerated men and women who try to earn college degrees at one of the most rigorous prison education programs in America. Novick’s next project as solo director and writer is a multi-part PBS series on the history of crime and punishment in America, slated for release in 2026. Following The U.S. and the Holocaust, she is collaborating with Burns, Botstein and writer Geoffrey C. Ward on a six-hour series on the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson. Novick graduated magna cum laude from Yale University with honors in American studies. 

Kerry Smith, Vice President, Ethics and Standards

ABC News

Kerry Smith is senior vice president of ABC News, where she is responsible for the editorial standards for all multimedia programming at ABC News, which includes nonfiction programming for broadcast, cable, and streaming. Smith

directs the news practices staff in training news employees in division-wide best practices and supervises producers and correspondents who report on sensitive issues.

A former investigative producer, Smith has produced documentaries, news programming and special events broadcasts. Her work has been honored with Peabody, DuPont and Emmy awards for long-form journalism and breaking news coverage.Smith serves on the board of directors for the International Women’s Media Foundation and Reporters Instructed in Saving Colleagues (RISC). She is also a member of the advisory boards of ProPublica and TheGroundTruth Project and is a member of the leadership council for the Committee to Protect Journalists. She was a 2015 Sulzberger Fellow at the Graduate School of Journalism, Columbia University.

Stephen D. Solomon, Marjorie Deane Professor of Journalism

New York University

Stephen D. Solomon is Marjorie Deane Professor of Journalism at NYU and director of the M.A. concentration in Business and Economic Reporting. His latest book, Revolutionary Dissent: How the Founding Generation Created the Freedom of Speech, explores how the raucous political protest of the nation’s founding period gave meaning to the freedoms of speech and press. His previous books are Ellery’s Protest: How One Young Man Defied Tradition and Sparked the Battle Over School Prayer, and (coauthor) Building 6: The Tragedy at Bridesburg, an investigation of the conditions that caused the deaths of 54 men from respiratory cancer at Rohm and Haas. Solomon is currently working on a book on the Bill of Rights. He is founding editor of First Amendment Watch, a website that provides news, commentary, and legal and historical context for the many free speech conflicts around the U.S. His articles have won the Gerald Loeb Award, the John Hancock Award for Excellence and the Hillman Prize. He is a graduate of Pennsylvania State University and Georgetown University Law Center.

Paul Steiger, Founder Emeritus

ProPublica

Paul Steiger is the founder emeritus of ProPublica and served as its editor in chief, chief executive and president from 2008 through 2012, and part-time executive chairman from 2013 through 2020. Before founding ProPublica, Steiger was the managing editor of the Wall Street Journal, during which time the newsroom won 16 Pulitzer Prizes. In addition, ProPublica reporters received Pulitzer Prizes in May 2010 and 2011. He was a reporter for 15 years, working as a Washington economics correspondent and business editor for the Los Angeles Times. He is a senior adviser to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Steiger has served as the chairman of the Committee to Protect Journalists, and previously was a trustee of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. He holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Yale University and in 2013, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree by Columbia University.