Livingston Awards Names Winners: 2009

New York, June 2. Christiane Amanpour, Tom Brokaw of NBC News and John Harris of Politico announced the winners of the $10,000 Livingston Awards for Young Journalists in local, national and international reporting. The prizes are limited to journalists under the age of 35 and are the largest all-media, general-reporting prizes in the country.

In addition to the prizes for young journalists, the Livingston Awards also honors a superb on-the-job mentor with a $5,000 prize named for Richard M. Clurman, the distinguished Time, Inc. journalist. Ken Auletta of The New Yorker made the presentation to Paul E. Steiger, founding editor and CEO of ProPublica and former managing editor of The Wall Street Journal.

Winners for 2009 work are:

  • Local reporting. Mark Greenblatt, 32, of KHOU-TV (Houston) for “Under Fire: Discrimination and Corruption in the Texas National Guard.” Greenblatt’s investigation began as an inquiry into reports of discrimination against women officers of the Texas National Guard. Discovery of widespread financial wrongdoing followed. Two years of serial revelations compelled Texas Governor Rick Perry to fire the Guard’s three top generals.
  • National reporting. David Nathaniel Philipps, 32, of The (Colorado Springs) Gazette, for “Casualties of War,” a two-part series about increased violence in Colorado Springs committed by soldiers returning to Fort Carson after combat duty in Iraq. He examined the soldiers’ lives leading up to the violent crimes they committed as well as the Army’s routine dismissal of danger signals when veterans showed warning signs of violent behavior caused by post-traumatic stress disorder.
  • International reporting. Abbie Boudreau, 32, of CNN. “Killings at the Canal: The Army Tapes” documented events that led to a court martial of three U.S. Army soldiers convicted of shooting four Iraqis. The investigation revealed parts of a suppressed videotape that included a military interrogation showing a soldier confessing to an execution-style killing. But Boudreau also unearthed a secret prisoner detainee policy that uncovered regulations for detention that had put combat troops under new pressures. Instead of merely turning over prisoners to units that would keep them captive, a “draft policy” prompted by the abuses at Abu Ghraib and in effect until 2009, required soldiers to produce police-style evidence, including sketches of crime scenes and written reports. Result: most prisoners were released; frustrating soldiers who feared these men would soon be firing on them again. more –
  • The Richard M. Clurman Award. For Paul E. Steiger, mentoring young journalists has been a central theme throughout a 44-year career that has included reporting for the Los Angeles Times and several editing positions at The Wall Street Journal including managing editor, the top job. In 2008, he launched ProPublica, a non-profit investigative reporting organization that creates material for traditional news organizations. One of its reporters produced a 13,000-word article published by The New York Times Sunday Magazine that won this year’s Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. Steiger is chair of the Committee to Protect Journalists and a trustee of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Previously, he served on the board of the Pulitzer Prize.

Amanpour, Auletta, Brokaw and Harris are joined on the Livingston judging panel by Dean Baquet, Washington bureau chief, The New York Times; Charles Gibson, former anchor, ABC News; Ellen Goodman, columnist and author; Clarence Page, columnist, the Chicago Tribune and Anna Quindlen, author and contributing editor, Newsweek. The program is directed by University of Michigan professor Charles R. Eisendrath, a former correspondent for Time magazine in Washington D.C., London, Paris and Buenos Aires.

CONTACT: Candice Liepa, 734-998-7575

KNIGHT WALLACE FELLOWS     |     ©2008     |     THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN