'Wash. Post's Kurtz Wins Medill Prize

By: E&P Staff Washington Post media writer Howard Kurtz was named the 2004 winner of the $10,000 Mongerson Prize for Investigative Reporting on the News.

The Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University also announced the winners of two $1,000 Awards of Distinction: Jim Avila of NBC Nightly News and Michael Getler of The Washington Post. A special Citation of Excellence for the San Antonio (Texas) Express-News also was announced.

The Mongerson Prize honors outstanding reporting that uncovers and promptly corrects incomplete, inaccurate or misleading news stories. It will be presented to Kurtz at a luncheon Wednesday, May 19, at the National Press Club in Washington.

The prize credits Kurtz with breaking the story of New York Times reporter Jayson Blair's apparent plagiarism on April 30, 2003, starting with the San Antonio Express-News' alert to the Times and following through with sources quoted by Blair who said they were never interviewed by Blair. Kurtz continued with coverage of the Times' internal investigation.

"He subjected The New York Times to the same relentless scrutiny that the best journalists apply to any institution," the judges said in awarding Kurtz the top honor. "His writing dominated the reporting on this story."

Kurtz's entry also included his coverage of Times reporter Rick Bragg's reporting methods, drawing on sources within the Times to give a revealing picture of the saga that led to Bragg's departure.

Medill also announced the awarding of a special Citation of Excellence to the San Antonio Express-News for discovering similarities between one of its stories and a story written by Blair and for reporting the fact to then-New York Times Managing Editor Gerald Boyd.

NBC Nightly News reporter Avila was honored for a story he reported that corrected mistakes that had been published and aired concerning the capture of Private Jessica Lynch. Getler was honored for columns he wrote as ombudsman for The Washington Post that chronicled a disturbing pattern of omissions in its coverage of the build-up to the war in Iraq and called into question the Post's story on Lynch and its subsequent reconstruction of her capture.

"The outstanding journalism by all of this year's winners shows the importance of quickly and prominently correcting mistakes so that the public is not misinformed," said Medill Assistant Dean Ellen Shearer. "The news media's credibility depends on the public's belief that mistakes won't go uncorrected."

The Mongerson Prize was created in 2001 through a grant from Paul Mongerson, an engineer, businessman and author who has studied the news media from a consumer's perspective. It is administered by the Medill News Service in Washington.