Baton Rouge – September 19, 2026 -- The Inner Circle has named Asia Alexus Alexander, M.S.M., a Pinnacle Professional of The Year for her work in marketing education. Alexander teaches marketing at Southern University and A&M College, where she structures coursework around live case studies, industry guest speakers, and analytics-driven projects to replicate the pace of modern marketing agencies.
New York – September 18, 2026 -- The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) has named six winners of the 2026 ACLS Open Access Book Prizes and Arcadia Open Access Publishing Awards, distributing a combined $300,000 across humanities disciplines.
Each winning author receives a $20,000 cash award, while the corresponding publisher receives a $30,000 grant to fund immediate open access publication of at least two new books. Winners span Anthropology, Environmental Humanities, History, Literary/Media Studies, Multimodal scholarship, and Political Science categories, selected from shortlists of five finalists per category by a judging panel.
Berlin – September 15, 2026 -- WELT chief reporter Ibrahim Naber won the Deutscher Fernsehpreis in the category "Best Presenter / Individual Achievement Information" on September 9, 2026, for his continuous frontline reporting from Ukraine.
The WELT chief reporter has documented combat zones and the civilian toll of the war since the start of the Russian invasion in 2022. In autumn 2025, Naber, his producer and his cameraman were wounded during a research trip when a Russian drone struck their location.
ZDF moderator Markus Lanz, delivering the award laudation, said Naber had experienced death directly and that fear had become visible in his eyes after the drone strike, yet he continued reporting from both sides of the conflict without theatrics.
Mainz – September 09, 2026 -- German public broadcaster ZDF has shortlisted five debut novels for its 48th annual "aspekte" Literature Prize, a €10,000 award recognized as a launchpad for major literary careers since 1979.
The finalists are Valeria Gordeev's "Die Zikade entschlüpft ihrer goldglänzenden Hülle" (S. Fischer), Clara Leinemann's "Gelbe Monster" (Suhrkamp), Martin Piekar's "Vom Fällen eines Stammbaums" (Rowohlt), Lilli Tollkien's "Mit beiden Händen den Himmel stützen" (Aufbau), and David Vajda's "Diamanten" (Hanser). Each title represents a different major German-language publishing house, underscoring the prize's reach across the industry's leading imprints.