Rappler’s Lian Buan is Elizabeth Neuffer fellowship runner-up

MANILA, Philippines – Rappler’s senior investigative reporter Lian Buan was named a runner-up of the 2026 Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship, given by the Washington D.C.-based International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF).

The IWMF selects one woman journalist every year from around the world to do the six-month fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for International Studies in Boston, United States.

Exiled Russian journalist Lilia Yapparova is the 2026 Elizabeth Neuffer fellow, named after the journalist who was killed in 2003 while reporting in Iraq.

“Yapparova continues to cover Russia’s war on Ukraine; she was the only Russian journalist reporting from Kramatorsk at the start of the invasion, and one of the few journalists who reported from inside occupied Chernihiv,” said the IWMF.

“Lilia embodies the spirit of Elizabeth Neuffer’s reporting, bearing witness to human rights abuses in the face of abject danger,” said IWMF executive director Elisa Lees Muñoz.

The fellowship is given to women journalists who focus on human rights and social justice.

Buan was selected as a runner-up for her work in Rappler, where she has “investigated wrongdoing in Philippine prisons; the illicit money trail of scam hubs; the killing, abduction, and persecution of activists and indigenous leaders; and corrupt government contracts, most recently of privatized water involving the country’s richest man.”

“Buan also investigated Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs and his alleged death squad,” said the IWMF announcement.

“My work is shaped by the work of my colleagues in the Philippine media, and I take this as a nod to our collective work, at a time where much of it is at best, being drowned out, and at worst, being discredited,” Buan said following the announcement.

– Rappler.com