What a year it has been for The Washington Post’s Narrative Enterprise Reporter Hannah Natanson. She herself made headlines when federal agents raided her home and seized her digital devices, intent on identifying her sources inside the federal government.
Natanson’s humanizing reporting on the federal employees affected by mass DOGE firings subsequently received several awards, including the 2026 Toner Prize and the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.
And on the evening of Aug. 26, Natanson was also honored with the National Press Club’s (NPC) Sandy Hume Memorial Award for Excellence in Political Journalism. Though Natanson was unable to attend in person, her colleague, Lori Montgomery, politics and government editor at The Washington Post, read a statement on Natanson’s behalf.
“I’m so grateful for Mike — for the stories we told together, for the person he is. … I could not have made it through the last year without him,” Natanson’s statement read, in part — referring to former Washington Post Economics Editor Mike Madden.
Natanson also thanked her family for things familiar to many journalists’ families and friends: “distracted dinners, late nights, imaginary weekends, and ruined vacations.”
And to the more than 1,100 federal employees who assumed great risk to inform her reporting, Natanson said, “I want you to know your trust is the highest honor I will ever receive. … Receiving this award is a testament to your generosity, vulnerability and immense courage.”
Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the National Press Club was founded in 1908. This year marked its 53rd annual Journalism Awards Dinner. Mark Schoeff, Jr., NPC’s president, served as emcee.
The evening kicked off with the presentation of six scholarship awards to deserving students who will go on to study and work in journalism. They are:
On a more somber note, Schoeff spoke on the formidable challenges journalists face today.
“The National Press Club works every day to advance press freedom,” he said. “We do this not because journalists are more special than others, but because press freedom ensures that all Americans have the free and unfettered flow of information that helps them make decisions, hold leaders accountable, and participate fully in civic life.”
“From restricted access and intimidation to detention and violence, to the steady erosion of trust, the threats to press freedom confront us every day,” Schoeff continued. “Since the beginning of the year, the club has issued 30 press-freedom statements. In the past few weeks, they have ranged from opposing the Pentagon’s firing of Stars and Stripes Editor Erik Slavin to calling for the removal of new and severely restrictive visa rules affecting international journalists.”
NPC awarded 18 professional awards, to journalists and news organizations representing an array of platforms — print, digital, visual, audio and broadcast/streaming. A full list of the 2026 National Press Club Award winners may be found here.
PBS FRONTLINE and NPR received the Washington Correspondence Award for their collaboration on “Hurricane Helene’s Deadly Warning.” The reporting relied on deep research into FEMA flood maps, building codes, public policy and preparedness.
Laura Sullivan — NPR News investigative correspondent and PBS FRONTLINE on-air correspondent — recalled arriving in western North Carolina after the storm, only to find communities without water, electricity or cell service. “Everything is matchsticks,” she told the NPC audience.
She recalled thinking, “How are we standing here again?”
For it is a troubling pattern, she explained: Communities impacted by devastating natural disasters don’t always “recover” in ways that leave them better prepared for the storm or catastrophic event.
“Well, that was the story. Why are we here again? … And why are all of these people so screwed by what is around them and how hard their lives are going to be for the years and years it’s going to take for these communities to recover? And going back to all these different communities, realizing that they don’t really recover — that we spend billions and billions of dollars every year failing to recover for the next storm,” Sullivan said.
As she accepted the award, she recounted being in the gala’s ballroom 30 years earlier. She was an intern at Newsday at the time and stood in the balcony as Cokie Roberts spoke about journalism. “It’s incredibly meaningful to have organizations like this that last decades after decades, and to still be here all these years later, where we can still remember that what we do matters,” Sullivan concluded.
Reporting for The Atlantic, Hana Kiros set out on a mission to understand the impact of the Trump administration’s USAID cutbacks and closures. She received the 2026 Edwin M. Hood Award for Diplomatic Correspondence for her reporting series.
“Four days into his second term, Donald Trump ordered virtually every foreign aid program funded by the U.S. to immediately stop its work, and it’s been the honor of my life to document what happened next,” said Kiros.
Kiros described her work as a story that’s still unfolding — at its core, “how the richest country in the world views its obligation to other countries.”
“Marco Rubio has also said that these are the most consequential years in U.S. foreign relations since World War II, and I think he might be on to something,” she said.
Kiros also shared a personal story about her path to investigative journalism. While reporting for The Washington Post, she learned that her younger cousin had been killed in a war unfolding in Ethiopia. The death toll was staggering, but the war wasn’t being covered by the international press.
“It’s also a war that most people don’t know happened. … I care about international reporting,” she reflected. “Maybe this is a way that I can be helpful to the world.”
Gretchen A. Peck is E&P’s editor-in-chief. She welcomes your emails at editor@editorandpublisher.com.
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