The White House Correspondents Association has announced the winners of their annual journalism awards. The awards will be formally given out during the White House Correspondents Dinner at the end of the month and the winners include journalists from the New York Times, CNN, Politico (at the time), and Reuters.
“The WHCA congratulates these award winners, and we’re proud to honor them at our annual dinner as we celebrate the First Amendment and the crucial role of journalism in informing and protecting the public,” WHCA president Margaret Talev said in a statement.
The Aldo Beckman Memorial Award, named for the late White House correspondent and WHCA president, recognizes excellence in presidential news coverage. The New York Times’s Maggie Haberman won this award for “her deep understanding of what makes President Trump tick.” Furthermore, the judges added, “Having covered Mr. Trump as a New York businessman for 20 years, she was able to tap that knowledge of his personality, business operations and inner circle to chronicle the first year of his presidency.”
The Merriman Smith Award recognizes stories under deadline pressure and has an award for print and broadcast. Josh Dawsey, who has since joined the Washington Post, won the award for his Politico article on press secretary Sean Spicer’s resignation. The judges called it “beautifully reported and written.” Chris Johnson of the Washington Blade received an honorable mention for his story breaking the news days after Christmas that President Donald Trump had fired his entire AIDS advisory council.
The Merriman Smith Award for broadcast was awarded to Evan Perez, Jim Sciutto, Jake Tapper, and Carl Bernstein of CNN (Bernstein is an analyst for CNN and served as a contributing editor for their investigative unit) for their work breaking the news that the intelligence community had briefed then-President Barack Obama and President-Elect Trump on the Steele dossier. An honorable mention for this award was also related to the Russian investigation as it it recognized NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt’s interview with President Trump when the President said that he fired FBI director James Comey because of the investigation.
The Edgar A. Poe Award recognizes coverage of national or regional significance. The award is named for a former WHCA president, not the author. The award went to Jason Szep, Peter Eisler, Tim Reid, Lisa Girion, Grant Smith, and their Reuters team for their investigation into lethality of Tasers. Honorable mentions were given to CBS This Morning host Norah O’Donnell’s investigation of sexual assault within the Air Force Academy and Politico reporters Dan Diamond and Rachana Pradhan for their reporting on then-HHS Secretary Tom Price’s use of taxpayer-funded private airplanes.