Reward have been Washington Post reporters and political Prize Winners to boot. The lady great Anthony Sneed won 2 lists ares for his reported in the middle east of which he gave his life. [applause] and colbert won a pulitzer at the Washington Post. I said this was a humbling experience for me and i meant that in every sense of the word. Prior to my getting a real job at the Washington Post, i was a copy aid for about 45 years so i deliver these guys mail and faxes on a daily basis. It is incredible and kind of surreal for me to be up here. I am really excited about this award, a big score for independent journalists. [applause] the absolute hardest thing about being independent especially if you go from being in a major newsroom is making that phone call to an important person, import organization and saying, it is just me. They go, all, one News Organization . It is just me, sorry about that. It takes a little bit getting used to. Probably the most rewarding at fact of being on your own aspect of being on your own, you dont have to chase the story that everybody is chasing. You get at the time and space to really chase the story that matter. If you are lucky enough to get other reporters to chase your stories. Ever since i left the post, i worked to convince some of my most dissatisfied or dissolutions colleague in newsrooms out to their to go out on their own and really ive watched some of my best friends in different newsrooms happen to take unpaid furloughs to keep their jobs. Having to do a lot less with more area they have to be assigned or reassigned to more advertising beats. And they are asked to sort a focus on doing stores that attract a lot more eyeballs and clicks than actual real journalism. The biggest reason i am excited about this award, it gives me a bigger megaphone to be the main, independent reporter guy and to push that message out there. If you have a deeper knowledge of what you do and a niche and you love what you do and you are passionate about that, you should consider going independent. You will almost certainly work harder, thank you. You will almost certainly work harder than you have ever worked before. But i think you will probably be happier. Probably be wealthier and will still be producing fantastic journalism, if youre doing it right. So, here is my open invitation to all of you out to their, it out there, if he thought about going independent and maybe your not really sure. Do me a favor shooting me a note. I am more than happy to talk to any of you about the failures, successes, all of its. Once again, i want to thank npr for having me here. I want to thank my own amazing this is manager mrs. Krebs who is seated in the middle of the room. Had to put all with an unbelievable amount of crap on my behalf for five years in thank you for having me here. [applause] our next award is as loose in online journalism to take for exceptional coverage. It features smart commentary, topnotch reporting on the industry that is constantly changing. Repost has shown quality journalism brings success in this highly competitive environment, accepting the award is amy schaltz. [applause] thank you very much. I am a Senior Editor for f re code. My bosses wish they could be here but they are moderating a conference tonight and they could not make it. One of six conferences and that re code will be hosting and they are important in this brave, new digital world. It is really only been a year since the re code team broke away from the wall street journal to form our own organization. We post seven days a week from new york, washington, l. A. , and San Francisco. We spent a lot of time on features. It might seem a little weirder since we publish online instead of dead trees but we found they are among the most popular stories on our site. Last year, we published re code series on innovative cities including boston and las vegas and are planning to do more. Among our feature stories was a look at the burning man and how one las vegas house of ill repute was the official brothel of ces. We could do this alone and will want to offer a thanks for our friends at nbc. Nbc is an investor and the folks are generous in helping reporters learn how to stop embarrassing ourselves on live tv. Sadly, some of us are learning faster than others. The entire re code team is we thank you for this tremendous honor. [applause] thrilled we caught the attention. We are proud to recognize the successes of News Organizations that have embraced the digital landscape. Thats why were pleased to announce the development of a new series of digital awards to continue and better honor those who make the best use of technology and innovation to make journalism better. We will be announcing more about the series of awards in the coming year. Our next award is given to journalism that shows the impact of rules and regulations on local communities area tonights recipient is thomas frank of usa today. [applause] history showing how unsafe hit series showing how please welcome thomas frank. [applause] i know i one of the last ones. I am from usa today, so i will be brief. [laughter] isnt that a great line . I would like to take credit for it but i heard it for the first time 15 years ago. [laughter] actually, i think newhart trademarked it. As much is i have wanted to use it, it is inexplicable because i from the Investigative Team so what i should say is get comfortable, faux. Folks. I one for a fivepart series that ran 17,000 words and something not trying to show personally even though that is a lot of words. But to make the point that the paper that a lot of you know is doing some serious, long firm, hardhitting investigative journalism. I am really grateful to the foundation for recognizing that. I am more grateful and proud to be working with an Incredible Team of people started with my editor and a really Creative Group of people who do terrific stuff online, who are the only guys here with really long hair. Carter and mitchell and jerry and marine, maureen, and shannon green. So, i encourage all of you to go to the usa today website and we have a link for the investigation. It is next to the kardashian video gallery. [laughter] no, actually it is not. But, it is gratifying. To know when i got into this business 30 years ago, people said, stay away from whatever you do. And go to good change like and we all know how that story ended. And so, i encourage all of you to understand what is going on at usa today as we tried to struggle like every other News Organization. Weve done something really really impressive and that is a real commitment to hardhitting, investigative, groundbreaking journalism and i am grateful for that and thank you to the foundation. [applause] ladies and gentlemen chairman and editor in chief of kiplinger publications. A good evening, i have from the kiplinger and i will be briefer. [laughter] i am Knight Kiplinger and i am not related to those other knigh ts. Wish i were, but i am not. Our honorary this evening is the first kiplinger awardee in many years who has never worked as a professional journalist. But paradoxically, she is one of the most influential figures someone would say the most influential in journalism today. In the forefront of a movement to totally reshape their journalism profession to adapt to the new realities of the digital age Alberto Ibarguen can be this dress more with force transformative force because under a lawyer and publisher and executive, their beats the heart of a journalist. While he was never a professional journalist, he was once a darn good student journalist. When he was the editor of the Wesleyan University his senior year in 1965, when a bus load of students went down to alabama from connecticut that spring for the montgomery to selma march alberto deputized six of his fellow students to call him with their firsthand accounts. He gave each of them a dime to place a collect call from the payphone. For the younger of you here tonight, ask someone older as the table was a collect call was and a pay phone. He told his fellow students when you are arrested, not if but when you are arrested, dont use this time to call your parents, your lawyer, or the dean call me. That is a tough editor. A few nights later, he sat by the phone with 4 empty pages in his layout for the next day. He waited and waited and then the collect calls started coming in with a vivid, firsthand accounts of Police Attacks on the peaceful marchers. We had one guy, he recalled, who was being beaten while he was on the phone in a phone booth. Ask someone else at your table was a phone booth is. Well, alberto field though for empty pages that night, scooping the papers in connecticut that had already gone to press. Field the filled the 4. Why didnt you choose journalism for career . He had other ideas for helping his fellow man as a peace corps volunteer and then an attorney, working in legal aid, Community Activism and connecticut state government. The siren song of publishing called to him. He ended up being senior management, first at the hartford current and Long Island Newsday and finally the miami herald. She was passionate about editorial quality, community engagement, and connecting with the readers. On his watch and the herald, the paper won numerous pulitzers comes the first paper in america to list reporters email addresses into the story. Well, as good a publisher as he was, it was Alberto Ibarguens leadership of the Knight Foundation that has made him such a force in american journalism today. For the past 10 years, he has remade this foundation to be the leading supporter and funder and cheerleader for journalistic innovation. To create new techniques and new Business Models for the news media to better serve the public. As he said in a recent interview, his mission is not to save newspapers or save Television News or radio news, but how to figure out how to meet information needs in every way possible. So the Knight Foundation of funds at new ventures to help journalists use of the internet to find citizen sources for their reporting and research. To sustain new nonprofit News Organizations. To create privacy protecting methods for whistleblowers to contact journalists online with safety. And to create a comprehensive database of donors to federal campaigns across america. The Knight Foundation is also a major funder of new Media Training for print and broadcast journalists. This is a mission that we acted the Kiplinger Foundation support through the Kiplinger Program for midcareer journalists at ohio state university. It is all about teaching old dogs and some new young dogs valuable new tricks. As a profile in Fast Company Magazine recently said, by reinventing the Knight Foundation, Alberto Ibarguen helped reinvent the news. It is for these contributions creative and yes financial, that the National Press foundation at this evening the stoles upon this leader the kiplinger award for lifetime contribution to journalism. Ladies and gentlemen, Alberto Ibarguen. [applause] thank you knight, i think i have died and gone to heaven. I dont deserve that generous introduction but thank you for it. Congratulations to all of the other winners tonight particularly my friend Gilbert Bailon for the extraordinary work that you done in lots of places and been there in the right place at the right time and across multiple media platforms. Great a job. I was actually surprised when Sandy Johnson called and told me about this awards is most of the winners in the past have been journalists. Rosenthal, head of a paper that i grew up with or jean roberts one of the great great editors are you to be in the Company Great editors and to be in the company is the definition of an honor. Of course, i am not sure this will get to me and he props at home. There was a family story that began when our son, was now First Amendment counsel at hearst not that his father is too proud to mention a home. He was a reporter for the Associated Press and stuck on a story and mentioned he was stuck on this story. And he thought we were both in the same business. He said, mom pop is a lawyer who runs a newspaper and i am a journalist. I do not pretend to be a journalist, i never have. I admit to a lifelong passion of journalism and Free Expression and a faith in the wisdom of a well informed crowd. I have Something Else in common with my distinguished predecessors a you tonight kiplinger himself and jack knight. We all grew up and became successful in a print oriented principles driven, hierarchical, state media world. We enjoyed few competitors highly profitable business, and a Public Service mission to inform. It in the space of about 10 years, newspapers and went from cash not to cost cutters struggling to make a profit so they could continue to serve. As always, chaos for some is opportunity for others to inform reach, around the people so they can determine their own interests. Across the country, i see a lot of a senior in newsrooms. We work with many of them. I see a lot of fear in newsrooms. From the Movie Network i am mad as hell and i will not take it anymore. When he began it this way when he ended that way, he said he doesnt know the solution but he knows he will not sit around and mo. Mope. Shes mad as hell and so should way. The best selfgovernment is not possible without an informed citizenry and informed citizenry is impossible without good journalism. My view of the future of journalism starts with a simple observation the new digital age of communication all around us in our pockets and wrists is profoundly changing our economy, our communities, and our lives. If you care about journalism you will have to care about technology because that is how you will find your audience, reading viewing, listening, commenting, producing, and distributing news. Journalism and news people must care about the devices people use, about how they will use them, and about how they will value the information, depending on the platform or device. You can wring your hands, pray for time to freeze, so the new republic will never change and the Times Picayune will return to full print or you can look with hope and good will as a current leadership works to find a way that fits the times. As so often is the case, you have two choices curse or light of the council. At knight, we choose the light. Were mad as hell and were doing something about it. Values matter, training matter maintain programs for Journalism Schools as you see on the slides. Deans, fellowships, new degrees training in person and online, were funded hundreds media from prototypes to realtime news to open Source Community engagement platforms. Weve turned m. I. T. s media lab to help us understand how people use information technology. We dont pretend to have a magic bullet but we were with journalists who care about the present and the future. We have a News Organizations whose missions, day in and day out, is to do outstanding journalism like Texas Tribune and the voice of san diego. In addition to, we have given breathing space to 27 online news sites around the country by finding 15 of their annual budgets. They have to survive. We finance tech incubators at the boston globe tools and right now, where in the middle of a project to create a new open Source Community platform with the Washington Post and the new york times. We are still experimenting and a slice show you how we have moved to smaller projects and it represents more than 90 million of active grants during this 4 year period, which is a drop in the bucket compared to what google microsoft, or facebook might spend on development. And sure i wish that News Companies had spent on r d when we were making 20 or 30 profit. That was then and that is now and we should be at the mad as hell and fighting in figuring out what to do next. Two of the people who do that help me do that are here tonight and i would like to recognize them. Director of Journalism Program and the chairman of our advisory journalism committee. [applause] most newsrooms sadly are not particularly experimental. What youve heard tonight, i wish were common and it is extraordinary and i congratulate the other winners again. If we dont experiment, you could wave your future goodbye. If you are experimenting, please do more. Push your boundaries and let us know what you are learning. Just a note there is no roadmap. Your path is made by walking with an open mind and will to change and serve the audience and remembering the true north star of journalism, fair accurate for trail of truth and that hasnt changed. Thank you. [applause] quick thank you, alberto thank you, alberto. We want to thank our Dinner Committee and 2 successful cochairs. [applause] im going to take forever. [laughter] nothing in this important gets done without the work of a lot of people and so i want to thank all of you for being here tonight. Come on. [applause] Sandy Johnson the National Press foundation has done Amazing Things to get this dinner off the ground. As cochair, i would like to thank the Dinner Committee for all of their hard work and please hold your applause until we recognize all of the members. And then please, stand when i mention your name. Jeffrey birnbaum. A simple instruction. [laughter] peter, politico. Chairman of the board. Kathy, national democratic. Plc. Imani green. International franchise. Bear corporation. Shawn make bride. Mcbride. Tamara. Will t1 thank you. I will like to thank six more names. Andy. Joanna snyder. Andrew shorts. Jeff friesen met with honda. Greg thank you. Rob starter. Rob has a fan base here. Bloomberg news and julie with yahoo . I would like to give a shout out to julie who made a really big contribution this year. Three weeks ago, welcomed a new child this year. Julie, thank you on behalf and everyone and thank you to everyone on the Dinner Committee. Thank you. [applause] thank you. The fruit of the Dinner Committees work provides training for journalism. We are going to abu dhabi to look a regulation and Health Issues and in december, we would take journalist to south africa to learn about tv and diabetes and thanks in part to eli. And educate journalists on retirement funded by prudential. In every program, an element of digital storytelling or training to keep our journalists of breast of the digital ways. Weve got a slate of webinars to make great use of our brandnew studios and will look at the latest research on addiction and bring in express to explain the baltimore over vaccinations uproar over vaccinations. And now i would like you to meet the hardworking npr staff. Linda, program director. Ginny, studio and program manager. [applause] rena levine. Congo, our intern this semester. And jet jet and jessica digital correspondence on this years dinner detail. [applause] where are making great use of our studio which opened in october a you can use it. It is available for commercial rental. Take care of yourself here and we produce a video content every week from this studio thanks to generous gift from the evelyn y. Davis foundation. This studio to produce your own highquality video or your website, newsletter. Bring your content alive just as we are doing at npf. Our studios are a few blocks away on connecticut avenue in the heart of d. C. Theres a brochure on your plate setting. Take it home and contact us for rental info. Studio at the National Press. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, kevin goldberg. In vice chair of the National Press foundation and of vice chair of the National Press foundation. Thank you. A couple of awards you do not want to miss. The word captivating is one i rarely use when describing Energy Policy issues. That is before i read a project of Bloomberg News which takes a hard look at issues facing our National Energy grid. Noting that while the grid hasnt changed much since tom edison invented the light of all and it is doomed to obsolete area read on and you will see why the judges were so enthusiastic about the choice of chris martin, jim of Bloomberg News are the winners of the 2015 Thomas Stoltz award for energy writing. [applause] thanks very much. Thanks to the judges. And to the National Press foundation. And i have woken up in a dream five years ago and think i would be honored by a national News Organization about utilities, i wouldve killed myself. [laughter] i am fundamentally a storyteller and my view is what is the story there . It is an amazing story. I spent many of my years on the wall street journal and i was and San Francisco in the 1980s when the macaw brothers were buying up cell phone tower rights and then we saw the first cell phone. It was the size of the suitcase. Everyone said, who in the hell wants one of those . And not every second grader in america has one. I had the privilege of actually interviewing George Mitchell who was the grandfather of fracking. For 25 years, everybody said, nobody will ever be able to squeeze oil and gas out of those formations. George mitchell got the recipe right and changed the energy world. This is where we stand at this moment in my opinion in our opinion on the utility. Weve reached this crossing and Tipping Point where suddenly theres a coalesce and sooner than we recognize will change the entire world in a way we see the world and the way we see the energy world. We are lucky and Bloomberg News because we have all of these really smart beat reporters who go out and rights of these incredible stories about stuff that is breaking. What we finally did was saw the connections, walmart is going to sell arise all of us solarize all of its stores of by 2020. Verizon, 1000 data centers. There were winners, but who are the losers and we recognize the losers could be potentially the industry. It is phenomenal. This a most interesting thing that has happened since Thomas Edison invented the grid. We took the helicopter up 5000 feet and began to see the connections. We discovered from those who said in a candid moment, the Telecom Industry in 1975 and remember what happened to them. This is our story. If you want to go online and read it, i think weve done a pretty good job of looking forward. I go home and tell my family, oh, my god, i am writing about energy. They say, get another life. It is the story of the next decade. And hats off to my colleagues and editors for doing this in thank you very much. [applause] jesuis charlie. Even those who do not speak a word of french half become familiar with this phrase after the january terrorist attack at the headquarters of Charlie Hebdo left 12 people dead all because of pictures, right . Political pictures are so much more because of the strong and effective message they can convey to anyone in an instance. A strong and effective message describes the cartoons of clay bennett who has drawn five cartoons a week for the Chattanooga Timess is joined in late 2007. His work is clean, concise, and to the point. Simple to understand but not simple. Our panel thought his work clear drawings, clear messages, and bennetts style is charming with a strong bite underneath. His humor is subtle and witty. Ladies and gentlemen, and honor the 2015 Clifford Berry for editorial cartoon to clay bennett. [applause] thank you very much for that. First off, let me thank the National Press foundation for this wonderful recognition of my work. I feel very honored, if not a little out of place to be included in such a distinguished group of journalists. Maybe i will see where did the only by association. I should confess that i always get a little bit nervous on occasions like this. I think of my anxiety all stems from this experience i had when i was asked to speak about for the Texas Press Association in 2002. Now, heres a dramatization of actual events. When i went to fort worth, i guess i was expecting a group of liberal, you know reporters and editors. I knew it was texas but it was the Texas Press Association. Instead i was faced with a room full of very conservative newspaper publishers. From across the lone star state. Undeterred by the demographics other group, i went ahead with my plan. After a short intro, the lights went down and lets see here the lights went down and atypical sort of liberal cartoons slide show. When the presentation was over 20 minutes later and the lights were turned back up, half of the audience was gone. I mean it was pretty humbling , if not downright humiliating experience. Even an optimist still wouldve seen the room as half full, mightve even been discouraged. The only comment i got afterwards that even came close to being a complement was one of the publishers walked up and said well, thats took guts. [laughter] and i will take that as a compliment. My nerves aside, im pretty sure nothing like that will happen tonight. You guys, it is d. C. After all and you guys are oprah and 8 urbane and tolerant crowd and we have blocked all of the exit spring with that in mind, lets get this show on the road. I have been a cartoonist to force long as i can remember. And ive been opinionated force long as anyone else can remember. And so it seemed only natural that i would pursue a career in editorial cartoon. I chose this career path in the early 1970s. During the heyday of the art form in like most cartoonists of my generation, i tried my best to emulate the artist who dominated the profession at the time. Unlike many of my contemporaries, i just was a talented enough to do it. I had to fashion a drawing style that was more suited to my modest ability as an artist. Now, ironically, it was my limitation as a cartoonist, not my skills as one that would determine the drawing style that would come to define my work. Ummm, my approach to cartooning was also shaped by my weaknesses than by my strengths. Temperature, for example ive never considered myself to be a good caricature. You might think it would discourage someone from pursuing a career in a profession virtually driven by caricature. I wasnt going to let a little thing like not being able to capture someones likeness to keep me down. Eliminating them altogether seems like a good solution. With time, i found ways to criticize Public Officials without depicting them at all. [applause] [laughter] 8 can yes. There are times when this job demands you draw a character. On those days, i do the best i can. Now sometimes it works out all right. By the way, the guy batting is president obama. Yes, i know he is lefthanded but he thats writes bats rights. Other time, you can put in a wellplaced label that will clear up any confusion on your subject matter. [laughter] thats when newt was contributing to antigayrights people. Most of the time, i avoid drawing characters by addressing broader issues in my work. And so, another signature of my approach to cartooning is the visual nature of my work. With artistic influences their range from the new yorker cartoons of Charles Adams and animated of warner bros. To the work of european and latin cartoonist, i have had an affinity for cartoons with few or no words. Now i may have followed the same path because i just love the purity and universal appeal of wordless cartoons or maybe i just went this route because i cant spell. But regardless of the reason the fact of the matter remains that the few were worse i include, the less chance i have of misspelling one. Now, like this one. I only had to spell check three words in this cartoon. And this one . No worse at all, the chant no words at also the chance of misspelling is zero. Once i developed the style and an approach that eliminates the words i cant spell, i had to establish a general tone to my cartoons. When i was [laughter] i faced an obstacle. When i was first breaking into this business, there seemed to be 2 types of cartoonist. Those who went for the jugular and those with for the funny bone. The only problem was i didnt really seem to comfortably fit into either school of cartooning. Ive always had strong views. But ive never thought of myself as being shrill or malicious. Even though i have leases of humor, im not all that funny. As of the speech tonight can be proof of that. But eventually, i would eventually i would find my place somewhere in the middle. I guess somewhere in between going for the jugular and going for the funnybone among what would that be . Going for the shoulder or bicep that doesnt sound like a good idea. My one and only rule of cartooning is to try to make a cartoon insightful. If i cant make it insightful, i try to make it funny. If i cant make it if i cant make it insightful or funny, make it timely. Needless to say, i draw a lot of timely cartoon. This one was very timely a couple of months ago when i first true it. Now, you might think i am tough on myself. But hell, being tough on myself might be all i have going for me. Ive always had a terrible if or debt inferiority complex when it comes to my work. I realize that there are 11 cartoonist a lot of cartoonist working today that are better artist and those are funnier and more intelligent than me. So suffering as i do from such low cartooning selfesteem, ive always tried to compensate for my inadequacies by a work ethic that borders on obsession. Now, in light of that, i would accept this honor tonight, but not as a recognition of artistic talent nor as a testament to any inherent wit or wisdom. I will accept this award on behalf of of neurotic insecurity and as the hard work it inspires. In closing, i would like to again thank the National Press foundation for recognizing my work. I would like to express special thanks to my bosses at the Chattanooga Times free press for their support. And my wife, cindy, for her incredible patience over the past 15. Lastly, i will like to thank all of you still here and for not walking doubt during walking out during my slideshow. Thank you very much. [applause] thank you, clay. Please join us for the postdinner reception in at the jefferson room on this level. While live music and sponsored by pepsico. On your way, i invite you to take a look at some of clays cartoons available for purchase with all proceeds going to the National Press foundation. I appreciate you having me here tonight and thank you and we will see you next year. Bye. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the