2013 Journalism Prizes
Glenn Thrush: Reporting on the Presidency
Glenn Thrush, Senior Writer for Politico Magazine won the 27th annual Gerald R. Ford Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency. The $5,000 award recognizes journalists whose high standards for accuracy and substance help foster a better public understanding of the Presidency.
The 27th Annual Gerald R. Ford Prizes for distinguished reporting in 2013 was presented by Steve Ford, son of the late President Gerald R. Ford and Chairman of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation at a luncheon on Monday, June 2, 2014 at The National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Following the presentation of the awards, Bob Schieffer, CBS News, addressed the audience.
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When announcing their decision to award Glenn Thrush the Gerald R. Ford Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency in 2013, the judges issued the following statement:
“As modern presidential administrations become ever more sophisticated in controlling their desired message, the job of reporting on government has become correspondingly more difficult. With reporters often funneled to well-rehearsed official spokesmen, and denied access to candid exchanges with responsible public officials and staffers, the public depends increasingly for accurate information on industrious, persistent and credible reporters who can somehow get around and beyond barriers thrown in their way.
Glenn Thrush, the first senior staff writer at Politico Magazine, distinguished himself during 2013 for his ability to surmount those barriers. Thrush, who wrote a first-rate behind-the-scenes book on the Obama presidential campaign in 2012, reset his sights inside the Obama administration during the critical first year of its second term. His reporting regularly produced insights available nowhere else. Throughout the year, Thrush showed a rare ability to cultivate unique, candid inside sources, both on and off the record, persuading them to share information that often belied the official story line. As such, he repeatedly delivered to his readers a unique, colorful and often-unvarnished account of government decision making.
During a difficult year for the administration, Thrush contributed insightful behind-the scenes reporting on the political struggles of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, on the White House staff’s attempts to maintain relevance as lame-duck status loomed for the President, and on the unusual decision to bring in senior strategic help from beyond the President’s inner circle. Thrush’s most detailed piece, “Locked In the Cabinet,” documented the continued trend towards accrual of power and policy supremacy in the White House, at the expense of Cabinet members nominally in charge, despite repeated promises to reverse that trend. Using vivid anecdotes and colorful detail, Thrush conveys the frustration generated by setbacks such as the Obamacare web site rollout, and the resulting infighting between little-known but powerful political staffers at the White House and their departmental colleagues. His reporting added vital context and detail to the public’s ability to understand the inner workings of the federal government.
In his work product, Glenn Thrush demonstrated the very best qualities of a free press — including resourcefulness, energy, independence, empathy and a strong sense of history. His work makes him a most deserving recipient of the 2013 Gerald R. Ford Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency.”
The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation sponsors the Gerald R. Ford Journalism Prizes for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency and Distinguished Reporting on National Defense to recognize and encourage thoughtful, insightful, and enterprising work by journalists covering the presidency and national defense. The Foundation is a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan corporation whose programs are supported entirely by contributions and bequests in an effort to honor President Ford’s sustained commitment to public service.
This year’s winner:
Glenn Thrush is senior staff writer for Politico Magazine. Before that, he served as the site’s senior White House correspondent and its main Obama 2012 campaign reporter. Since 2008, he has covered a wide range of assignments for Politico – including a two-year stint running its highly-trafficked Capitol Hill blog.
Thrush is the recipient of numerous journalism awards, including the two highest citations for presidential coverage awarded by the White House Correspondents Association, the Aldo Beckman Award for journalistic excellence and the Merriman Smith Award for breaking news coverage. He authored two New York Times best-selling e-books on the 2012 campaign, Obama’s Last Stand and The End of the Line (co-authored with Jonathan Martin).
He is a five-year veteran of Newsday, where he covered politicians (Hillary Rodham Clinton, Michael Bloomberg, Rudy Giuliani, Barack Obama and Chuck Schumer) and issues (homelessness, poverty, transportation and child welfare) in the paper’s New York’s City Hall and Washington DC bureaus.
Thrush is a veteran of Bloomberg News – where he covered the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and their aftermath, former editor of City Limits, a monthly that covers low-income neighborhoods in New York, ex-editorial director of think tanks Child Welfare Watch and the Center for an Urban Future and one-time statehouse and education reporter for the late, lamented Birmingham (Ala.) Post-Herald. He has also written stories for the New York Times Magazine, New York, the New York Observer, Spin, the Village Voice, Metropolis and Guitar World, where his work appeared under the byline “Glenn Thrash.” He’s a native of Brooklyn, a graduate of Sheepshead Bay High School (Larry David’s alma mater) and Brooklyn College – and worked as an adjunct professor at the Columbia Journalism School and NYU’s Science and Environmental Reporting Program.
Thrush lives in Maryland with his wife and twin sons.
Dave Philipps: Reporting on the National Defense
Dave Philipps who reports on military affairs for The Gazette in Colorado Springs, has won the 27th annual Gerald R. Ford Prize for Distinguished Reporting on National Defense. The $5,000 award recognizes journalists whose high standards for accuracy and substance help foster a better public understanding of National Defense.
The 27th Annual Gerald R. Ford Prizes for distinguished reporting in 2013 will be presented by Steve Ford, son of the late President Gerald R. Ford and Chairman of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation at a luncheon on Monday, June 2, 2014 at The National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Following the presentation of the awards, Bob Schieffer, CBS News, will address the audience.
When announcing their decision to award Dave Philipps the Gerald R. Ford Prize for Distinguished Reporting on National Defense in 2013, the judges issued the following statement:
“In a year of exceptionally strong submissions for defense reporting, the judges have selected Dave Philipps from The Gazette of Colorado Springs as the winner of the Gerald Ford Award for Distinguished Reporting on National Defense in 2013.
In his second inaugural address in 1865, President Abraham Lincoln admonished the nation to “care for him who shall have borne the battle” – which forged a social compact with America’s service men and women that has lasted 150 years. Mr. Philipps’ series of articles documented a breach of that commitment with the surge in “Other than Honorable” discharges by the U.S. Army for warriors whose wounds are not always physically evident The factual scientific evidence on the long-term deterioration of cognitive functions after traumatic brain injuries was compelling. His stories were local, but the breadth of his research and interviews was national in scope. His writing style was riveting and reportorial at the same time.
In the shadow of the Air Force Academy and Fort Carson, Mr. Philipps’ stories took courage to write and publish. His body of work raised important underlying issues. First, he noted that the military system has not adjusted to a new operational reality in which career troops are often warfighter and veteran at the same time. Second, his work highlighted the disparity between the rhetoric of honoring wounded warriors and the broken promises of their actual care. This is a problem that budgetary pressures will continue to exacerbate. Finally, his series underscored the increasingly important role that regional news outlets are playing in helping to showcase issues of national import.
The power of his reporting had immediate impact on the national dialogue and on the lives of wounded warriors. The number of soldiers Army-wide who were released with other than honorable discharges began to drop after the series was published. This was a unanimous selection by the judging panel.”
The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation sponsors the Gerald R. Ford Journalism Prizes for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency and Distinguished Reporting on National Defense to recognize and encourage thoughtful, insightful, and enterprising work by journalists covering the presidency and national defense. The Foundation is a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan corporation whose programs are supported entirely by contributions and bequests in an effort to honor President Ford’s sustained commitment to public service.
This year’s winner:
Dave Philipps has worked at The Gazette in Colorado Springs for ten years as an investigative reporter, photographer, ski writer, restaurant critic and occasional cartoonist. Because Colorado Springs is home to more than 50,000 active duty troops, his work has often focused on the military and the unintended consequences of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A Colorado Springs native, Philipps graduated from Middlebury College in 2000 and got a master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 2002. In 2010, he won the Livingston Award for National Reporting and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Local Reporting for what judges called “his painstaking stories on the spike in violence within a battered combat brigade returning to Fort Carson after bloody deployments to Iraq, leading to increased mental health care for soldiers.” In 2014, he won the Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for expanding the examination of how wounded combat veterans are mistreated, focusing on loss of benefits for life after discharge by the Army for minor offenses, stories augmented with digital tools and stirring congressional action. He lives at the foot of the Rockies with his wife and two sons.