Every year, the American Academy of Diplomacy presents the Arthur Ross Award to a journalist or journalists who have produced the most compelling and insightful pieces concerning American diplomacy.

Sylvia Poggioli, Sr. European Correspondent at NPR, is the recipient of the 2011 Arthur Ross Media Award in the category of commentator.

Slyvia Poggioli, NPR

Sylvia Poggioli is senior European correspondent for NPR's foreign desk covering political, economic, and cultural news in Italy, the Vatican, Western Europe and the Balkans. Poggioli's on-air reporting and analysis have encompassed the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, the turbulent civil war in the former Yugoslavia and how immigration has transformed European societies.

Since joining NPR's foreign desk in 1982, Poggioli has traveled extensively for reporting assignments. Most recently, she travelled to Norway to cover the aftermath of the brutal attacks by an ultra-rightwing extremist; to Greece, Spain, and Portugal for the latest on the euro-zone crisis; and the Balkans where the last wanted war criminals have been arrested.

In addition Poggioli has traveled to France, Germany, United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Sweden, and Denmark to produce in-depth reports on immigration, racism, Islam, and the rise of the right in Europe.

Throughout her career Poggioli has been recognized for her work with distinctions including: the WBUR Foreign Correspondent Award, the Welles Hangen Award for Distinguished Journalism, a George Foster Peabody and National Women's Political Caucus/Radcliffe College Exceptional Merit Media Awards, the Edward Weintal Journalism Prize, and the Silver Angel Excellence in the Media Award. Poggioli was part of the NPR team that won the 2000 Overseas Press Club Award for coverage of the war in Kosovo. In 2009, she received the Maria Grazia Cutulli Award for foreign reporting.

In 2000, Poggioli received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Brandeis University. In 2006, she received an honorary degree from the University of Massachusetts at Boston together with Barack Obama.

Prior to this honor, Poggioli was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences "for her distinctive, cultivated and authoritative reports on 'ethnic cleansing' in Bosnia." In 1990, Poggioli spent an academic year at Harvard University as a research fellow at Harvard University's Center for Press, Politics, and Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government.

From 1971 to 1986, Poggioli served as an editor on the English-language desk for the Ansa News Agency in Italy. She worked at the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy. She was actively involved with women's film and theater groups.

The daughter of Italian anti-fascists who were forced to flee Italy under Mussolini, Poggioli was born in Providence, Rhode Island, and grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She graduated from Harvard College with a Bachelor's degree in Romance languages and literature. She later studied in Italy under a Fulbright Scholarship.

Borzou Daragahi of the Financial Times, is the recipient of the 2011 Arthur Ross Media Award in the Daily Reporting Category.

Borzou Daragahi, Financial Times

Borzou Daragahi, 42, is the North Africa correspondent for the Financial Times, which he joined in 2011 after leaving the Los Angeles Times. He has covered war and politics, commerce and culture in the Middle East, North Africa and Afghanistan for various print and broadcast outlets since 2002.

He covered the build-up, conflict phase and aftermath of the war in Iraq from 2002 to 2007 first as a freelance journalist and later as bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times. He was recognized as a Pulitzer Prize finalist in international journalism for his coverage of Iraq in 2005 and as part of a team of Los Angeles Times reporters in 2007. He covered the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia. He was recognized as a finalist for the Pulitzer in 2010 for his coverage of the 2009 uprising after the disputed elections in Iran, and spent several years shuttling to Vienna and hobnobbing with diplomats in an attempt to sort out claims and counterclaims in the dispute over Iran's nuclear program. The 2011 Arab Spring uprisings shifted his focus to Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria.

Born in Iran, Borzou grew up in Chicago and New York and has lived in Germany, France, Iran, Iraq and Lebanon. He currently resides with his wife, Le Figaro correspondent Delphine Minoui, in Egypt. He received his bachelors' degree from the Eugene Lang College of the New School for Social Research and a masters' degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. He speaks and reads English and Persian as well as some German Arabic and Spanish.

Dana Priest of the Washington Post and William Pfaff of the Tribune Media Services International.

Barbara Demick of the Los Angeles Times and James Boyd of The Minneapolis Star Tribune

2004

Robin Wright of the Washington Post

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2002

John Burns of the New York Times and Anne Garrels of National Public Radio

James Lehrer of the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.