Carey McWilliams Award
Carey McWilliams Award
Nominations are closed.
The McWilliams Award honors a major journalistic contribution to our understanding of politics.
The award is presented at the APSA Annual Meeting and carries a cash prize of $1000. The award was established in honor of Dr. McWilliams’s intellectual forthrightness and political independence as a journalist.
Nomination Information
- Eligibility: Self-nominations are accepted. Nominees do not have to be members of APSA, affiliated with an institution in the United States, or an American citizen in order to be considered for an award.
- Eligible candidates:
- should have a distinguished public service career in newspaper, magazine, or broadcast media;
- should, in his or her work, illumine some broad general principles of the social and political sciences;
- may have a background in editorial activities and not necessarily be a working journalist or writer, and
- should illumine certain key elements identified with McWilliams, which include intellectual forthrightness and political independence.
Award Committee
Listing of Awardees
| Year | Recipient | Affiliation |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Jamelle Bouie | The New York Times |
| 2024 | Adam Iscoe | The New Yorker |
| 2023 | Steve Lopez | The Los Angeles Times |
| 2022 | James Newton | University of California, Los Angeles |
| 2021 | Loren Ghiglione | Northwestern University |
| 2020 | Judy Woodruff and Gwen Ifill (posthumously) | PBS NewsHour |
| 2019 | Ariel Edwards-Levy | The Huffington Post |
| 2018 | Craig Silverman | BuzzFeed News |
| 2017 | Jake Tapper | CNN |
| 2016 | Alan Rusbridger | The Guardian/ Oxford University |
| 2015 | No award given | |
| 2014 | Charlayne Hunter-Gault | Author and Journalist |
| 2013 | Ezra Klein | The Washington Post |
| 2012 | Dana Priest | The Washington Post |
| 2011 | Robert Fisk | The Independent |
| 2010 | Charles E. Cook Jr. | Cook Political Report |
| 2009 | Fareed Zakaria | Newsweek International |
| 2008 | National Public Radio | |
| 2007 | Ronald Brownstein | Los Angeles Times, Washington Bureau |
| 2006 | Mark Danner | University of California, Berkeley |
| 2005 | Seymour Hersh | The New Yorker |
| 2004 | Bill Moyers | Public Affairs Television |
| 2003 | Adam Clymer (Co-recipient) | The New York Times |
| 2003 | Thomas Friedman (Co-recipient) | The New York Times |
| 2002 | Linda Greenhouse (Co-recipient) | The New York Times |
| 2002 | Janet Hook (Co-recipient) | Los Angeles Times |
| 2001 | Victor Navasky (Co-recipient) | The Nation Magazine |
| 2001 | William Kristol (Co-recipient) | The Weekly Standard Magazine |
| 2000 | Allen Ehrenhalt | Governing Magazine |
| 1999 | Dan Balz | The Washington Post |
| 1998 | Richard Reeves | University of Southern California |
| 1997 | Anthony Lewis | The New York Times |
| 1996 | E.J. Dionne | The Washington Post |
| 1995 | Brian Lamb | C-SPAN |
| 1994 | Thomas Bryne Edsell | The Washington Post |
| 1993 | Nina Totenberg | National Public Radio |
| 1992 | Michael Barone | U.S. News and World Report |
| 1991 | Molly Ivins | Dallas Times-Herald |
| 1990 | National Journal | |
| 1989 | Lesley Stahl | CBS News |
| 1988 | Jeffrey H. Burnbaum and Alan S. Murray | The Wall Street Journal |
| 1987 | Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report | |
| 1986 | Neal R. Peirce | Washingotn Post Writers Group |
| 1985 | Jim Lehrer and Robert MacNeil | MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour |
| 1984 | Murray Kempton | Newsday |
| 1983 | David S. Broder | The Washington Post |
| 1982 | Richard Strout | Christian Science Monitor |
Support for Scholarship
We are continually grateful for the contributions from APSA members and friends that make our work possible. Your donation helps continue the McWilliams Award and recognize future individuals for their important contributions to journalism and politics. Thank you for your support of APSA and scholars across the discipline.
