Shree Paradkar, an award-winning journalist and equity advocate, has won the 2024 Ken Filkow Prize. The prize recognizes Paradkar for advancing freedom of expression in Canada.
Paradkar is a race and social justice columnist at The Toronto Star, where she also served as the first internal ombud in a newsroom in Canada, a position created to develop an anti-racist newsroom. During her tenure, she advocated for journalists who are minoritized in the industry and continues to mentor dozens of journalists today.
“Nominated for this award by her fellow journalists at the Star and elsewhere, Paradkar is regarded as a leader who shines a light on the marginalized and under-represented,” the Ken Filkow jury citation reads. “Her active and committed support of young journalists of colour is fundamental to expanding free expression for those who are often excluded from the means to articulate marginalized experiences of an unequal society.”
Paradkar has worked as a journalist in Toronto, Singapore, Bangalore and Mumbai. She received two Amnesty Awards for Human Rights reporting as well as an Atkinson Fellowship, during which she travelled the world and reported on success stories of education systems that tackle oppression. Most recently, she received a prestigious Massey College fellowship.
Over the last 8 years, her Star column has tackled divisive, challenging topics, including police violence, anti-Black racism, the persistence of Islamophobia, the threat to LGBTQ+ rights, residential schools, anti-Indigenous racism, and the chill on Palestine advocacy.
“I am cognizant of the profound honour of being chosen for this award in a moment when our cherished freedom of expression is under threat,” says Paradkar. “I hope it serves as an example to young journalists everywhere that the fight is worth it. I have the privilege of a formidable platform at the Toronto Star and I am proud to use it to surface voices that have been historically shut out.”
For her work, Paradkar has received online death threats and harassment, and is often the target of social media smear campaigns. Her peers acknowledge that her work comes at the cost of reputational harm, risk to her health and well being and impact on personal and professional relationships.
In recent months, as an unprecedented number of journalists and media workers were killed in Gaza, Paradkar’s dedication to press freedom and freedom of expression was evident in her columns on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Among her columns, she spoke out against the lack of coverage in the media and the silence among many journalists:
“Where is the solidarity with Palestinian journalists working in impossibly hostile environments?” she asked in a Star column. “Instead, newsrooms have warned journalists not to sign petitions of support claiming it would malign the organizations’ reputation for balance and objectivity.”
The Ken Filkow Prize is given to a Canadian individual or organization that has fought courageously for freedom of expression in Canada, at the expense of their own safety or reputation. Paradkar’s Ken Filkow Prize recognition comes after a public call for nominations. Her nomination was among two other finalists the jury selected: Saba Eitizaz, a Toronto Star podcaster, and Indiginews, an Indigenous-led online publication.
Paradkar will receive the award at a private PEN Canada ceremony this month, celebrated among peers and recipients of three other PEN Canada awards.
PEN Canada is a nonpartisan organization that celebrates literature, defends freedom of expression, and assists writers in peril at home and abroad. The English-language Canadian centre was founded in 1983 and is proud to be one of over 140 centres of PEN International.
The Ken Filkow Prize was established in 2015. The prize, funded by Cynthia Wine and Philip Slayton, is named in memory of Kenneth A. Filkow, Q.C., a distinguished Winnipeg lawyer, former chair of the Manitoba Human Rights Commission, and former member of PEN Canada’s Canadian Issues Committee. Previous winners include journalist and documentarian Brandi Morin, photojournalist Amber Bracken, writer Desmond Cole, and journalist and publisher Tim Bousquet. Winners are selected by a jury following a public call for nominations.
