Overseas Press Club award descriptions:
- The Hal Boyle Award
Hal Boyle was a distinguished columnist and Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent who covered World War II and the Korean War for The Associated Press. He published more than 7,600 columns during his career, becoming one of the nation’s most widely syndicated newspaper columnists. His vivid reports brought American readers to the forefront of crises around the world.
- The William Worthy Award
William Worthy Jr. was an African-American foreign correspondent for the Baltimore Afro-American and CBS News “who in the thick of the Cold War ventured where the United States did not want him to go – including the Soviet Union, China, Cuba,” and who helped transform the role of modern foreign correspondence. His victory in a landmark ruling by a federal appeals court in 1964 “enabled all United States-based foreign correspondents to travel the world more freely.” In 2008, the Nieman Foundation for Journalism awarded Worthy the Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism.
- The Robert Capa Gold Medal Award
Hungarian-born war photographer Robert Capa rose to world fame during the early 20th century for his battlefield photographs. He was known to use a small 35mm camera to document intimate moments during conflict and create close-up photographs. Later in his career, he cofounded Magnum Photos with Henri Cartier-Bresson, David Seymour, George Rodger and William Vandivert in 1947. He was tragically killed by a landmine while on assignment for LIFE covering the First Indochina War in 1954.
- The Olivier Rebbot Award
French photographer Olivier Rebbot captured vivid images of war and conflict around the world, including the Lebanese civil war and the Iranian revolution. In 1981, at the age of 31, he was wounded by sniper fire while on assignment covering the guerrilla war in El Salvador for Newsweek, and later died of his injuries. He was one of at least ten foreign journalists to die covering the civil war in El Salvador.
- The Danish Siddiqui Award
The Feature Photography Award has been renamed for Danish Siddiqui, a Pulitzer-Prize-winning Reuters journalist acclaimed as one of the finest photojournalists of his generation for his work from India, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. Siddiqui was killed by the Taliban in July 2021 while covering the group’s reconquest of Afghanistan. Siddiqui and three other colleagues were awarded the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography for images of COVID’s toll in India that judges said “balanced intimacy and devastation, while offering viewers a heightened sense of place.” Siddiqui also received a citation for the Overseas Press Club’s 2017 Olivier Rebbot Award for photographic news reporting for images of Rohingya who fled violence in Myanmar.
- The Lowell Thomas Award
A newscaster, radio commentator, documentary filmmaker, and author, Lowell Thomas worked across mediums during World War I, traveling through Europe and the Middle East. After the war, he worked as a radio broadcaster in Pittsburgh before returning overseas to cover World War II. In the final decades of his career, he was a nightly news radio broadcaster, coining his famous sign off, “So long, until tomorrow!”
- The David Kaplan Award
Broadcast news producer David Kaplan worked for ABC News for over 20 years, covering political campaigns, world news, and the White House throughout his career. In 1992, he was shot and killed by a sniper’s bullet in Sarajevo, Bosnia, while covering Yugoslav Prime Minister Milan Panic’s visit to the city. The Balkan wars of the 1990s became known as one of the deadliest eras for journalists in history.
- The Edward R. Murrow Award
Edward R. Murrow was one of the pioneers of American broadcast journalism. He was sent to Europe by CBS News just before the beginning of World War II and soon became director of the network’s Europe bureau. His CBS radio dispatches were a fixture in homes across the county, bringing American audiences to the frontlines of conflict. After the war, Murrow remained one of the most prominent names in media, first on radio, then TV.
- The Peter Jennings Award
Peter Jennings was a celebrated correspondent and broadcaster, bringing audiences to the forefront of history through his decades in broadcast radio and TV news. He reported for ABC from around the globe in world capitals and war zones, including gripping accounts of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. He served as the sole anchor of ABC World News Tonight for over 20 years until his death in 2005.
- The Ed Cunningham Award
During World War II, Ed Cunningham served in the military and reported for Yank, the weekly publication for American army personnel published during the war. He reported from Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Europe as a correspondent. He was also a generous and active member of the Overseas Press Club for many years and served on several committees.
- The Malcolm Forbes and Morton Frank Award
The longtime publisher of Forbes magazine, Malcolm Forbes was an esteemed businessman and publishing leader. He led Forbes for over three decades, growing the brand to national and international recognition through examining American economic forces and the companies at their forefront. Morton Frank was a leader in the newspaper business and in the Overseas Press Club. He was the publisher of Family Weekly, a national newspaper supplement included in Sunday papers across the country. Frank was also a longtime and enthusiastic OPC member and served on the awards committee and as a board member.
- The Cornelius Ryan Award
Irish journalist Cornelius Ryan covered World War II as a foreign correspondent, writing for The Daily Telegraph and TIME and later expanded on his war reporting in several books. As a military historian, he penned the stories that provided the world with a vivid understanding of war. He documented the invasion of Normandy on D-Day in his book, The Longest Day, which sold tens of millions of copies. He was also a longtime active member of the Overseas Press Club and served as a vice president for several years.
- The Madeline Dane Ross Award
Working as a reporter, editor, and publicist, Madeline Dane Ross contributed to several newspapers and magazines throughout her career, including The New Yorker and the North American Newspaper Alliance syndicate. Ross was a champion for women journalists and a dedicated leader in the Overseas Press Club. She connected with members, organized fundraisers, and served as the club’s first vice-president. In the edition of the club’s Bulletin following her passing in 1972, she was remembered as “a person of rare loyalty, dignity, ability and devotion to the OPC.”
- The David A. Andelman and Pamela Title Award
A frequent CNN columnist and longtime reporter, David A. Andelman is a veteran foreign and domestic correspondent. He has served as the New York Times bureau chief in Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe, as well as Paris correspondent for CBS News and Washington correspondent for CNBC. He has also served as an editor at several publications, including as an executive editor of Forbes.com, and was the Overseas Press Club president from 2010-2012. This award is named after Andelman and his wife, Pamela Title.
- The Joe and Laurie Dine Award
Joe Dine was a broadcast news leader, serving as director of public information for NBC, CBS, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. He was a longtime active member of the Overseas Press Club as well, serving on several committees and as chair of the annual awards dinner. This award is named after Dine and his wife, Laurie.
- The Whitman Bassow Award
Whitman Bassow served as a Moscow correspondent for over a decade during the Cold War, dispatching essential stories from the Soviet Union for United Press International and Newsweek until Soviet officials revoked his press card and ordered him to leave the country in 1962. He later chronicled his experience in his book, The Moscow Correspondents, and went on to serve on the Overseas Press Club’s board of governors.
- The Robert Spiers Benjamin Award
Robert Spiers Benjamin was one of the foreign correspondents who founded the Overseas Press Club in 1939. Throughout his career, he reported across Central and Latin America, spending significant years in Chile, Argentina, and Mexico. He wrote four books during his lifetime and worked at several publications, including The New York Times as Mexico City bureau chief.
- The Kim Wall Award
Freelance Swedish journalist Kim Wall reported worldwide on what she called “the undercurrents of rebellion.” Her courageous journalism highlighted people and movements often left out of mainstream news reports. Wall’s reporting took her around the world, including to Cuba, Sri Lanka, Uganda, and Washington, D.C., until she was tragically murdered in 2017 while reporting in Denmark.
- The Roy Rowan Award
Legendary foreign correspondent Roy Rowan reported from conflict zones around the world for TIME and LIFE magazines, leaving a legacy of insightful and gripping war reporting. He began his career covering the 1949 Chinese revolution, and went on to work as a reporter and editor covering the Korean War and the Cold War. He then led coverage of the Vietnam War as the TIME bureau chief of Asia and Australia and was one of the last Americans evacuated from Saigon by helicopter in 1975. He served as president of the Overseas Press Club from 1998-2000.
- The Flora Lewis Award
Flora Lewis was a pioneering journalist of the 20th century, covering crises throughout Europe and around the world. She worked for over 25 years as a Paris-based foreign and diplomatic correspondent for The New York Times. Her coverage spanned the end of the Vietnam war to the fall of the Berlin Wall and beyond. She received many awards for her distinguished career, including a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Overseas Press Club in 1999.