Columbia Journalism Award

This award is the school's highest honor. It was established in 1958 and is presented each year at commencement.

The Columbia Journalism Award is given in recognition of exceptional journalistic performance and voted by the faculty “for singular journalistic performance in the public interest.”

It is presented annually to someone of overarching accomplishment and distinguished service to journalism.

1958 - J.N. Heiskell
1959 - Arthur Hays Sulzberger
1960 - Mark Ethridge
1961 - Bernard Kilgore
1962 - Erwin Canham
1963 - Mayor Robert Wagner
1963 - Citation to Theodore Kheel
1964 - Fred Friendly
1967 - Edgar B. Stern, Jr.
1971 - I.F. Stone
1972 - Neil Sheehan
1973 - Katharine Graham
1974 - John H. Johnson
1975 - William Shawn
1976 - A.H. Raskin
1977 - Pamela Mendels
1978 - Charles Peters
1979 - Theodore H. White
1980 - Tom Wolfe
1981 - Walter E. (Red) Smith
1982 - Edward Barrett
1983 - Morton Mintz
1984 - Frank McCulloch
1985 - Helen Thomas
1986 - William L. Shirer
1987 - The Honorable John E. Moss
1988 - Louis D. Boccardi
1989 - Neil Sheehan
1990 - Robert C. Maynard
1991 - Peter Arnett
1992 - Arthur Ochs Sulzberger
1993 - The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour
1994 - David Laventhol
1995 - Charles Kuralt
1996 - Gene Roberts
1997 - Walter Cronkite
1998 - Carl Rowan
1999 - Joan Didion
2000 - Pete Hamill
2001 - Joe Lelyveld
2002 - Paul Steiger
2003 - Seymour Hersh
2004 - David Fanning
2005 - David Halberstam
2006 - Jim Amoss
2007 - Ben Bradlee
2008 - Terry Gross
2009 - Alejandro Junco de la Vega