Photo by Salome Angrand

Mongerson Prize honorees John McManus, Robin Stein, David Barstow, Mark Mazzetti, Brian Thevenot, Gordon Russell, Melissa Cornick, Eamon Javers and Gretchen Wenner pose with Paul Mongerson at the 2006 prize luncheon. To read about the 2006 luncheon, click here.

The Mongerson Prize
for Investigative Reporting
on the News

The Mongerson Prize for Investigative Reporting on the News was established in 2001 through a grant from Paul Mongerson and was sponsored by the Medill School of Journalism. In 2004, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation gave the prize a two-year grant to further its promotion. It was based at the Medill News Service in Washington.

In its five-year run, the Mongerson Prize honored outstanding journalists who uncovered and promptly corrected incomplete, inaccurate or misleading news stories.

The Prize had as its goals:

• To improve news credibility by encouraging more reporting on media mistakes;
• To honor those who set the record straight on news stories; and
• To promote high news standards so that the public receives the best, most reliable and accurate information possible.

The prize was able to honor several excellent journalists, including Brian Thevenot and Gordon Russell of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, John Stossel and Melissa Cornick of ABC “20/20,” Michael Massing of the New York Review of Books and Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post.

The prize drew the journalism industry’s attention to the problem not only through the notice given to the winners but also through research outlining newsroom attitudes toward correcting media mistakes and a curriculum guide that is being used in newsrooms and classrooms through the country. It is an important goal to have accomplished.

After the 2006 prize year, Paul Mongerson has decided to turn his attention to other avenues, so the prize has been discontinued. Medill thanks him for supporting the prize program and its mission.

The winning entries from all five years as well as our survey research and the curriculum guide will continue to be available on our Web site, www.mongersonprize.org.

Thank you for your interest in the Mongerson Prize over the years.