Rupert Cornwell Prize 2025: Trisha Mukherjee named as this year’s winner

The fifth Rupert Cornwell Prize for Journalism has been won by Trisha Mukherjee, a freelance journalist based in New York.

The annual award is aimed at younger journalists at the start of their careers. Ms Mukherjee, beat an exceptionally talented group of applicants with her proposed series of stories about the US-Mexican border.

The prize was established in memory of Rupert Cornwell, the distinguished foreign correspondent and writer who died in 2017. The goal is to help fund a suitable journalistic project in any of the broad regions Cornwell spent much of his career covering – North America, Europe and the Soviet Union.

The £5,000 prize is supported by The Independent and is awarded by the Rupert Cornwell Trust.

“It’s a true honor to be awarded this year’s Rupert Cornwell prize. I am deeply inspired by Mr. Cornwell’s tenacious and incisive journalism. Reporting from anywhere, he knew how to make each sentence sing. I hope to carry forth his inimitable spirit in my own reporting at the US-Mexico border and beyond.” Ms Mukherjee said.

On behalf of the judges and the trust, Cornwell’s widow Susan, a former US Congressional correspondent for Reuters, praised Ms Mukherjee’s “topical, detailed and well-researched” proposal.

“Trisha’s pitch showed her to be a talented and sensitive writer. The judges were also impressed with her focus on global human rights and her desire to create a more compassionate world through stories,” Cornwell said.

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Ms Mukherjee has contributed to the New York Times and Business Insider.

The judges also commended Antonia Langford’s innovative proposal about climate change, ecological disruption and historical legacies in Central Asia.

Rupert Cornwell was one of the most elegant of writers in recent times, and embodied the pioneering spirit of The Independent when he joined as one of its first recruits in 1986. He remained one of its most eloquent voices, writing for the title until his death in 2017.

From his reports for the Financial Times in Rome to years at The Independent chronicling the decline of the USSR, and on to the Trump phenomenon in the United States, he was a source of inspiration for his colleagues and now for a new generation of journalists.