Times Wins for Warrantless Wiretaps
As the Harvard Crimson
reports, New York Times reporters James Risen and Eric Lichtblau won the $25,000 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting last night at a ceremony at Harvard's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy for their blockbuster revelation of the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program. Times columnist Nick Kristof also won a special citation for his work on the genocide in Darfur. These were the other five finalists for the top prize.
-
Joshua Boak, James Drew, Steve Eder, Christopher
D. Kirkpatrick, Jim Tankersley and Mike Wilkinson, of
the
Blade (Toledo, OH) for “Uncovering 'Coingate'"
An inquiry into Ohio's curious investment in rare coins led to
an investigation culminating in convictions of the governor and
others and exposure of illegal campaign contributions.
Marcus Stern and Jerry Kammer, of the Copley
News Service for “Randy 'Duke' Cunningham”
Reporting by Stern and Kammer led to the resignation of Rep.
Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-CA) after they revealed Cunningham
had taken $2.4 million in bribes.
-
Evelyn Larrubia, Robin Fields and Jack Leonard,
of the Los Angeles Times
for “Guardians for Profit”
Their series exposed how a new breed of entrepreneur has entered
the field of guardianship of the elderly, victimizing older
Americans by charging them exorbitant fees, neglecting their
needs and sometimes looting their assets.
-
Susan Schmidt, James V. Grimaldi and R. Jeffrey
Smith of the
Washington Post for “The Abramoff Scandal”
Throughout 2005, in articles that broke the major revelations,
the Post
unraveled Abramoff's web and his ties to then-House Majority
Leader Tom DeLay.
-
Dana Priest of the
Washington Post
for “The CIA's Secret War Against Terrorism”
Her series of articles have uncovered the inner workings,
successes and failures of the CIA's global effort to kill,
capture and interrogate suspected terrorists, revealing the
existence of a network of secret prisons outside the U.S.
As you can see, there were a number of truly high impact competitiors for the prize. And as one of five judges this year, I can vouch for the fact that picking a winner was tough. One crucial factor in the Times favor was the import of the issue raised by its reporting, which goes to the heart of civil liberties and personal freedom in the era of the 24/7 war on terror. And the one finalist on this list that didn't involve a scandal or issue that made major headlines this year -- the LA Times probe of guardians for the elderly -- is positively chilling.
The recipient of the center's Goldsmith Career Award and keynote speaker last night was PBS anchor
Jim Lehrer, who gave a passionate old-school speech last night extolling the virtues of traditional journalism. Describing the current media industry atmosphere as "a moment, in many ways...of absolute panic," he declared: "I say to you tonight that is absolute nonsense...The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
"The bloggers are talkers and commentators, not reporters," he continued. "The search engines search, they do not report. Every single one of them have to have news first to thrive...it has to start with one of us, one of us in the real news business...What concerns me is there has been a growing tendency among some of us...to make entertaining people one of our principles. I tell people all the time, if you want entertainment, don't watch the 'NewsHour.' Go to the circus."
Lehrer's best line of the night may have come when someone asked him what the most difficult part of his job was. He responded by quoting something his old partner Robert MacNeil once said when asked about the worst part of his job.
"It forces you to take seriously sometimes people you wouldn't otherwise take seriously."