2024 Journalism Prizes
Annie Linskey, Davis Winkie, and Noah Robertson Honored for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency and National Defense
The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation announced the winners of the 38th annual Gerald R. Ford Journalism Prizes for Distinguished Reporting in 2024 at its annual meeting in Washington DC on June 2, 2025.
These prestigious annual awards recognize excellence in coverage of the U.S. presidency and national defense—two pillars of American democracy that President Ford held in the highest regard.
This year’s honorees include Annie Linskey of The Wall Street Journal for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency; Davis Winkie of USA Today (formerly Army Times) for Distinguished Reporting on National Defense; and Noah Robertson of Defense News, who receives an Honorable Mention in the national defense category.
Ford Presidential Foundation trustees Mike Ford (left) and Roger Porter (right) with award recipients Davis Winkie,
Annie Linskey and Noah Robertson.
Annie Linskey: Reporting on the Presidency
Annie Linskey, The Wall Street Journal
In a presidential election year notable for its unexpected turns and unprecedented events, perhaps the most striking moment was the decision by President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to withdraw his candidacy in mid-summer, after winning every primary and securing his party’s nomination. The turning point was the Biden/Trump debate of June 27th, which quickly led to a general agreement among Democratic leaders that the president lacked the ability to wage a winning campaign and serve a second term.
That consensus received intense and meticulous coverage as it developed and is the subject of several notable books on the 2024 campaign.Yet even before the pivotal debate, The Wall Street Journal became the first newspaper to document the president’s decline and the West Wing’s efforts to conceal it. The woman leading the coverage was Annie Linskey, a member of the Journal’s White House team since 2022.
Linskey’s exhaustive, well-sourced, accurate reporting brought vital information to the reading public, despite forceful White House efforts to suppress or dismiss the story. According to the Journal’s Washington bureau, a White House spokesman “tweeted or retweeted more than 80 posts that disparaged the Journal’s reporting . . . [and] Annie Linskey received violent . . . threats.” Yet Linskey carried on, providing the most thorough and detailed reporting on the president’s age of any newspaper in the nation. As the election passes into history, and as many journalists fault themselves or their peers for “missing the story” of 2024, Linskey’s perseverance, skill, and nerve stand out even more.
For her preeminent role in covering an episode without parallel in modern presidential history, the selection committee honors Annie Linskey with the Gerald R. Ford Journalism Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency.
Davis Winkie, Reporting on National Defense
Davis Winkie, USA Today (formerly Army Times)
The Gerald R. Ford Foundation is pleased to present this year’s award for Distinguished Reporting on National Defense to Davis Winkie for his reporting at the Military Times family of newsmagazines. Winkie's three-part “Broken Track” series documented high suicide rates among the U.S. Army’s armor units resulting from unsustainable rates of non-combat deployments.
Winkie’s series provided evidence to confirm the mounting damage to the armor community. His detailed and creative analysis delivered through engaging narrative resulted in the Army making changes to deployment schedules, increasing suicide prevention measures, and improving compensation.
Winkie’s data collection and analytic methods are both quality investigative journalism and credible social sciences research. He overcame technology challenges and assembled a unique database from primary source documents, in the process correcting the Army’s flawed understanding of its service members’ suicide rates. While the Army initially disputed Winkie’s findings, the Service later validated the accuracy of the data and used it to support changes to its deployment model.
Winkie created an analytic method that revealed the exact locations of elevated suicide rates. His data-driven analysis and personal interviews illustrated the human cost of deployment and sustainment schedules with insufficient recovery time. The judges, with personal connections to the armor community, noted the exceptional ability of the series to inform readers about deployment stresses common to all services.
“Broken Track” mitigated damage to a vital Army capability and represents the informative and high impact journalism that the Gerald R. Ford Journalism Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the National Defense seeks to recognize.
Noah Robertson, Honorable Mention, Reporting on National Defense
Noah Robertson, Defense News
The Gerald Ford Journalism Prizes judging panel awards an Honorable Mention for Distinguished Reporting on National Defense to Noah Robertson of Defense News.
As the nation prepared for a presidential election, Noah Robertson penned a series of articles that captured in plain language the most pressing policy issues that drove national security decision-making for the outgoing administration and that the incoming administration must confront over the next few years.
Robertson’s reporting dug deep into the state-of-play regarding Taiwan, the challenges facing the defense industry, and the dynamic nature of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
Through his reporting, Robertson demonstrated keen understanding of the current national security landscape, analyzed how we arrived there as a nation, and applied a critical eye toward what may come over the horizon. Robertson provides the American people with an excellent guide to the key security issues they cannot afford to overlook as the United States repositions itself in the world.
About the Gerald R. Ford Journalism Prizes
The Gerald R. Ford Journalism Prizes recognize excellence in reporting on the presidency and national defense, honoring the legacy of President Ford and his commitment to transparency, accountability, and principled leadership. Winners are selected by an independent panel of distinguished judges from journalism and public affairs.