UA Journalism School Honors Dana Priest with Zenger Award
Washington Post reporter Dana Priest, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, uncovered secret CIA prisons and poor treatment of wounded soldiers

By Mike Chesnick, UA School of Journalism
May 3, 2016

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The UA School of Journalism has granted the John Peter and Anna Catherine Zenger Award since 1954.
The UA School of Journalism has granted the John Peter and Anna Catherine Zenger Award since 1954. (Photo credit: FJ Gaylor)


The University of Arizona School of Journalism will honor Washington Post investigative reporter Dana Priest with the 2016 John Peter and Anna Catherine Zenger Award for her work exposing secret prisons and the poor treatment of wounded soldiers.

Given by the school since 1954, the award honors journalists who fight for freedom of the press and the people's right to know. Priest will accept the award at a gala dinner to be held Oct. 21 at Westward Look in Tucson.

Priest appeared on The Diane Rehm Show for a May 3 segment in honor of World Press Freedom Day, which was proclaimed by the U.N. General Assembly in 1993 to celebrate and assess press freedom, defend the media from attacks on their independence, and recognize journalists who lost their lives in the line of duty.

"Today is World Press Freedom Day, which makes me particularly grateful to be receiving this award from the UA School of Journalism," Priest wrote in an email. "The school's award-winning work is an example of American journalism at its finest and a reminder of the power of investigative reporting to change lives."

Past winners of the Zenger Award include Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, Bill Moyers, Walter Cronkite and Associated Press foreign correspondent Kathy Gannon, who returned to reporting this year after being wounded in a 2014 attack in Afghanistan.

"Dana Priest epitomizes what journalism is all about – courage, truth-seeking, holding those in power accountable, and providing people the information they need to adequately self-govern," said David Cuillier, the UA School of Journalism director.

Priest won a 2006 Pulitzer for uncovering secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe and a 2008 Pulitzer for reporting on deplorable conditions for veterans at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington. She also is a John S. and James L. Knight Chair in Public Affairs Journalism at the University of Maryland's Philip Merrill College of Journalism.

A three-time Pulitzer finalist, Priest is an alumna of the University of California, Santa Cruz and is the author of two bestselling books: "The Mission: Waging War and Keeping Peace with America's Military," published in 2003; and "Top Secret America: The Rise of the National Security State," published in 2010. The first book was a Pulitzer finalist and is still used in military academies. The second, developed into a Frontline documentary, covered the buildup in top-secret intelligence organizations in the aftermath of Sept. 11.

Extra info

What

Zenger Award Dinner

Where

Westward Look, 245 E. Ina Road

When

Oct. 21 at 5:30 p.m.

For more information about the 2016 Zenger Dinner, including how to buy tickets, visit: www.journalism.arizona.edu/Zenger2016

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Mike Chesnick  

UA School of Journalism  

520-621-7556  

mchesnick1@email.arizona.edu