The George Polk Awards in Journalism are a series of American journalism awards presented annually by
Long Island University
Long Island University (LIU) is a private university with two main campuses, LIU Post and LIU Brooklyn, in the U.S. state of New York. It offers more than 500 academic programs at its main campuses, online, and at multiple non-residential. LIU ...
in New York in the United States. A writer for Idea Lab, a group blog hosted on the website of
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...
, described the award as "one of only a couple of journalism prizes that means anything".
History
The awards were established in 1949 in memory of
George Polk, a ''
CBS'' correspondent who was murdered in 1948 while covering the
Greek Civil War
The Greek Civil War ( el, ο Eμφύλιος όλεμος ''o Emfýlios'' 'Pólemos'' "the Civil War") took place from 1946 to 1949. It was mainly fought against the established Kingdom of Greece, which was supported by the United Kingdom ...
(1946–49). In 2009, former ''
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' editor
John Darnton
John Darnton (born November 20, 1941) is an American journalist who wrote for the ''New York Times''. He is a two-time winner of the Polk Award, of which he is now the curator, and the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. He also moon ...
was named curator of the George Polk Awards.
Josh Marshall's
blog
A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...
, ''
Talking Points Memo'', was the first blog to receive the Polk Award in 2008 for its reporting on the 2006
U.S. Attorneys scandal.
List of award recipients
Categories
* Foreign reporting
* Radio reporting
* Photojournalism
* Economics reporting
* Business reporting
* Labor reporting
* Legal reporting
* National reporting
* Internet reporting
* Magazine reporting
* Military reporting
* State reporting
* Education reporting
* Local reporting
* Television reporting
* Documentary Film (introduced in 2014)
In addition, the George Polk Career Award is given in recognition of an individual's lifelong achievements.
References
{{reflist
George Polk Award recipients
American journalism awards
Awards established in 1949
Career awards
1949 establishments in New York (state)
Long Island University