Pulitzer Prize-winning editor Bob Woodward, best known for teaming with then-Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein to unravel the Watergate break-in and cover-up that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon, has been named the recipient of the Denver Press Club’s 25th annual Damon Runyon Award.
Woodward, today an associate editor at the Post, will be honored by the club on Friday, March 1, 2019, during a banquet at the Denver Athletic Club.
“We’re thrilled to be honoring one of the most consequential journalists of our time,” said Dan Petty, president of the Denver Press Club. “Bob Woodward has a decades-long track record of dogged, fact-based reporting that’s enabled him to get stories no other journalist has. His adherence to these values, despite an environment hostile to the press and a media ecosystem that increasingly rewards speculation over truth, makes him an ideal recipient of this historic award.”
Woodward may be considered the greatest journalist of his generation. The stories that he and Bernstein wrote changed the history of the United States.
They also inspired many others to pursue a career in journalism.
Woodward’s coverage in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks contributed to the Post winning the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting.
He recently released “Fear,” a best-selling book about the extraordinary chaos of the first year of President Donald Trump’s administration.
Woodward joins the list of previous Runyon winners who comprise an honor roll of American journalism.
They are Jimmy Breslin, Mike Royko, Molly Ivins, Herb Caen, Pete Hamill, Ted Turner, Maureen Dowd, Tom Brokaw, David Halberstam, Ed Bradley, Carl Hiaasen, Seymour Hersh, George Will, Bob Costas, Tim Russert, Rick Reilly, P.J. O’Rourke, Anna Quindlen, Frank Deford, Mike Lupica, Katie Couric, Norm Clarke, Jill Abramson, David Simon and Marty Baron.
The award is named after Damon Runyon, a legendary journalist who grew up in Colorado, worked at The Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News, and became a member of the DPC in 1907.
Runyon later went on to fame and glory in New York City as a columnist for Hearst newspapers. He is best known for a collection of stories called “Guys and Dolls,” which later was turned into a Broadway musical and a movie.
The Denver Press Club in 2017 celebrated its 150th anniversary during a year in which its downtown clubhouse was added to the National Registry of Historic Places.
The Runyon Award banquet is the club’s major fundraiser. Proceeds go toward the club’s historic preservation and scholarships for seven college journalists from Colorado universities.
Tickets are available at Blacktie Colorado.
For more information, email DPC vice president Linda Shapley at lin.shapley@gmail.comor call Bruce Goldberg at 303-369-4088.
