Ken Burns, Marcus Yam to receive COM’s Hugo Shong Awards for journalism excellence

Award-winning documentarian Ken Burns and Los Angeles Times foreign correspondent and photojournalist Marcus Yam will receive this year’s Hugo Shong Awards, presented by the Department of Journalism at Boston University’s College of Communication (COM).

As part of the awards celebration, Burns will give the opening keynote talk for COM’s annual Power of Narrative conference on Friday, March 27 at 3 p.m. in Metcalf Hall in the George Sherman Union at Boston University. The presentation is free and open to Boston University students, staff and faculty.

Burns is the recipient of the Hugo Shong Lifetime Journalism Achievement Award which “honors the journalist whose body of work and contributions to the field exemplify the highest quality of reporting and analysis, outstanding accomplishments and ethical standards of the journalistic profession.”

Ken Burns has been making documentary films for almost 50 years. Since the Academy Award nominated Brooklyn Bridge in 1981, he has directed and produced such acclaimed historical documentaries as The Civil War; Baseball; Jazz; The War; The National Parks:  America’s Best Idea; Prohibition; The Roosevelts: An Intimate History; The Vietnam War; Country Music; The U.S. and the Holocaust; The American Buffalo; Leonardo da Vinci; and, most recently, The American Revolution.

Burns’ films have been honored with dozens of major awards, including 17 Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards and two Oscar nominations. In 2008, he was honored by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences with a Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2022, he was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame.

Yam is the recipient of the Hugo Shong Reporting on Asia Award for displaying “the highest standards of international journalism in a series of reports on matters of importance specific to Asia.”

Yam is a foreign correspondent and photojournalist for the Los Angeles Times. His work bears witness to humanity amid conflict in some of the world’s most volatile regions.

In 2022, he received the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography for his coverage of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. He is a two-time recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Journalism Award, most notably in 2019 for his portrayal of the everyday plight of Gazans. In 2023, he earned the Overseas Press Club’s Robert Capa Gold Medal for his unflinching coverage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Most recently, Yam was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University.

Named after award-winning journalist and COM (’87) alum Hugo Shong, the awards highlight outstanding journalists and their work to uphold the highest standards of the profession. Past winners of the Hugo Shong Awards include Connie Chung, Ted Koppel, Dean Baquet, Pete Souza, and Carol Guzy.

Shong is a Boston University Trustee and a member of COM’s Dean’s Advisory Board.