About the award
Throughout its history, in keeping with its founding principle of Independence of Learning, Waseda has produced innumerable brilliant journalists and social critics who pursue high ideals in the spirit of progressivism and anti-elitism, without bending to temporal fashion.
Honoring the legacy of our predecessors, it is our duty and calling in this era of great change to create an arena for free speech, and to produce the agents who will advance the exercise of high-minded debate.
This is the aspiration of the Waseda Journalism Award in memory of Ishibashi Tanzan.
The award aims to identify journalists contributing to the culture and the public good, thereby nurturing the development of conscientious critics and expanding the arena of free speech.
The award is named for alumnus Tanzan Ishibashi (1884-1973), journalist, economist and 55th Prime Minister of Japan. He truly embodied Waseda’s core values, as a tireless defender of liberty and free speech, unyielding to temporal fashion.
