Gershkovich to receive Lovejoy Award for Courage in Journalism

Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter jailed in Russia for nearly 150 days, will receive the 2023 Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award for Courage in Journalism from Colby College.

Gershkovich, who writes about Russia for The Journal, has been detained in Moscow’s Lefortovo Prison since his arrest in late March.

Gershkovich joined the Journal’s Moscow bureau in January 2022. His parents, Ella Milman and Mikhail Gershkovich, will accept the Lovejoy Award on his behalf on Oct. 20.

“In his reporting and in the time since his detention, Evan Gershkovich has demonstrated courage that evokes the spirit of Elijah Parish Lovejoy,” said Colby President David A. Greene in a statement. “We are honored to be recognizing his important contributions and personal sacrifice in the presence of his parents, who are working diligently for his release.”

Gershkovich is the first American journalist arrested on espionage charges in Russia since the end of the Cold War. The State Department has deemed him wrongfully detained, unlocking a broad U.S. government effort to exert pressure on Russia to free him. The allegation of espionage filed against him is something that he, the Journal, and the U.S. government vehemently deny.

Since 1952 Colby has presented the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award to honor contemporary journalists who stand for freedom of the press. The award is named for Lovejoy, the 1826 valedictorian at Colby and a crusading abolitionist editor murdered by a mob in 1837 for his impassioned anti-slavery editorials.