A downloadable PDF version available with a list of winners can be found at the bottom of this release.
The Washington Post and The New York Times Lead Winners at the 71st Overseas Press Club Awards; Andy Rooney Receives Lifetime Achievement Award; Once-Imprisoned Correspondent David Rohde Lights the Press Freedom Candle Honoring Journalists Killed in Action
NEW YORK, April 22 — In a year when the most frequent international coverage originated from Afghanistan and Iran, The Washington Post and The New York Times were the only multiple winners as each captured two Overseas Press Club Awards — leading all news organizations at the 71st Annual OPC Awards Dinner.
Since 1940, the OPC awards have recognized the finest examples of international journalism. Kimberly Dozier, the Associated Press’s new intelligence reporter and a veteran correspondent who was injured in Iraq four years ago, will emcee the event at a black-tie dinner tonight in
New York.
Andrew A. Rooney of CBS will receive the President’s Award for lifetime achievement and David Rohde, The New York Times correspondent who escaped his Taliban captors, will light the Press Freedom Candle in honor of the 71 journalists killed last year in the line of duty.
The Post raised its OPC awards total to 37. The reporting team of Bob Woodward, Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Karen DeYoung won for best news interpretation for their series on the Obama Administration’s search for a new Afghanistan strategy. Post photographer Sarah Voisin won for her images of the people in Mexican communities affected by drug wars.
Not included among the 37 OPC awards won by the newspaper, a book titled The Good Soldiers, written by David Finkel of the Washington Post and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Finkel won the Cornelius Ryan OPC Book Award for his account of eight harrowing months with the 2-16 Ranger Army Battalion in Iraq.
Alissa Rubin of the New York Times Magazine won for best magazine reporting with a story on a would-be female suicide bomber in Iraq. The Times’ second OPC award and 77th all-time came from Keith Bradsher for best business reporting on the contradictions and promise of China’s environmental push.
The Wall Street Journal’s Farnaz Fassihi won the coveted Hal Boyle Award for best newspaper reporting from abroad for “Hearts, Minds and Blood: The Battle for Iran.” The judging committee noted her “courageous reporting under tremendous pressure that gave an inside view of the unfolding drama in Iran.”
“Courage, integrity and perceptiveness are the hallmarks of the distinguished reports that the OPC winners deliver from the world’s most dangerous hotspots,” says OPC President Allan Dodds Frank. “We honor them because their work is the public’s window to the world. Without their contributions to our knowledge of current events, the world would be a much more dangerous place.”
Stories related to the war in Afghanistan accounted for five of the 20 awards but there were also multiple winning entries from Iran, Iraq, Israel and China. South America’s increasing profile saw winners from Brazil and Venezuela. Others came from Mexico, Iceland, Mauritania and India.
The Associated Press took home the Robert Capa Gold Medal Award for best photo reporting from abroad requiring exceptional courage. Khalil Hamra’s pictures of the Israeli military incursion into Gaza showed considerable bravery, especially as the combatants mingled among the civilian population.
Frank will present Rooney with the OPC President’s Award for distinguished service in the field of journalism. The “60 Minutes” commentator, newspaper columnist, author of 16 books and former World War II foreign correspondent for the Army’s Stars & Stripes joined the OPC in 1947.
“The OPC is proud to present the President’s Award to Andrew A. Rooney for his continued excellence as a writer and broadcaster, and for his longstanding support of reporting from abroad,” said Frank.
Video clips of the winners will be posted on the OPC website at www.opcofamerica.org after the dinner. Media organizations are encouraged to link to the clips.
The OPC Awards were founded in 1940 to recognize excellence for foreign coverage in the categories of print, broadcast and photography. There were 436 entries in this year’s competition.