David Briggs speaking into a microphone

The IARJ congratulates its co-founding member David Briggs, who was honoured this week by the Religion Newswriters Association with the 2025 William A. Reed Lifetime Achievement Award.

In his acceptance speech, David said he was the one who started the Lifetime Achievement Awards during his time at RNA, but it was never his intention to receive the honor himself, reports Deepa Bharath, an IARJ member who was there. “His speech focused on a word and a virtue we don’t often hear about in our world today: Humility.”

The IARJ leader talked about how staying humble has given him a unique perspective throughout his life, including as a journalist, Bharath said. “What was remarkable was that during his speech, David did not talk about his work or his accomplishments or the highlights of his career. He talked about the qualities it takes to be a good religion journalist. It was an education for all of us.”

At IARJ, we are grateful to David, who brought together some 25 reporters covering faith and religion in different regions of the world to found the International Association of Religion Journalists. That was in 2012, in Italy, and today the IARJ is a global network of hundreds of reporters, sharing experiences and the challenges they meet in covering religion.

As Peggy Fletcher Stack, Executive Director of IARJ, said: “it was David’s dream.” Today it is IARJ’s dream to keep working to give opportunities to journalists committed to fair and accurate covering of religion.

Read more about David’s experience, his commitment to journalism and its role in society, in the RNA’s announcement