The Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism is an annual literary award for "a journalist whose work has brought public attention to important issues", awarded by the

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second-largest public library in the United States behind the Library of Congress a ...

. It was established in 1987 in memory of journalist Helen Bernstein, and there is a cash award of $15,000.

Winners

* 1988 –

James Reston James "Scotty" Barrett Reston (November 3, 1909 – December 6, 1995) was an American journalist whose career spanned the mid-1930s to the early 1990s. He was associated for many years with ''The New York Times.'' Early life and educati ...

for fifty years of journalism * 1989 –

Judy Woodruff Judy Carline Woodruff (born November 20, 1946) is an American broadcast journalist who has worked in local, network, cable, and public television news since 1970. She was the anchor and managing editor of the ''PBS NewsHour'' through the end of 20 ...

for television reporting of the

Iran–Contra affair The Iran–Contra affair (; ), also referred to as the Iran–Contra scandal, the Iran Initiative, or simply Iran–Contra, was a political scandal in the United States that centered on arms trafficking to Iran between 1981 and 1986, facilitat ...

* 1990 –

Thomas Friedman Thomas Loren Friedman ( ; born July 20, 1953) is an American political commentator and author. He is a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner who is a weekly columnist for ''The New York Times''. He has written extensively on foreign affairs, global ...

for '' From Beirut to Jerusalem'' * 1991 – Nicholas Lemann for ''The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America'' * 1992 – Alex Kotlowitz for '' There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America'' * 1993 – Samuel Freedman for ''Upon This Rock: The Miracles of a Black Church'' * 1994 – David Remnick for '' Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire'' * 1995 – Joseph Nocera for ''A Piece of the Action: How the Middle Class Joined the Money Class'' * 1996 – Tina Rosenberg for '' The Haunted Land: Facing Europe's Ghosts After Communism'' * 1997 – David Quammen for ''The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions'' * 1998 – Patti Waldmeir for ''Anatomy of A Miracle: The End of Apartheid and the Birth of the New South Africa'' * 1999 – Philip Gourevitch for '' We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda'' * 2000 ''Joint winner:'' – James Mann for ''About Face: A History of America's Curious Relationship with China, from Nixon to Clinton'' * 2000 ''Joint winner:'' – Patrick Tyler for '' A Great Wall: Six Presidents and China: An Investigative History'' * 2001 – Elaine Sciolino for ''Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of Iran'' * 2002 –

Nina Bernstein Nina Bernstein is an American journalist, best known for her ''New York Times'' reporting on social and legal issues, including coverage of immigration, child welfare and health care. In 21 years at the ''Times'', from which she retired at the e ...

for ''The Lost Children of Wilder: The Epic Struggle to Change Foster Care'' * 2003 – Keith Bradsher for ''High and Mighty: SUVs--The World’s Most Dangerous Vehicles and How They Got That Way'' * 2004 – Dana Priest for ''The Mission: Waging War and Keeping Peace with America’s Military'' (W. W. Norton & Company) * 2005 – Jason DeParle for ''American Dream: Three Women, Ten Kids, and a Nation's Drive to End Welfare'' (Viking) * 2006 – George Packer for '' The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq'' (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) * 2007 –

Lawrence Wright Lawrence Wright (born August 2, 1947) is an American writer and journalist, who is a staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' magazine, and fellow at the Center for Law and Security at the New York University School of Law. Wright is best known as ...

for '' The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11'' (Alfred A. Knopf) * 2008 – Charlie Savage for ''Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy'' (Little Brown & Company) * 2009 –

Jane Mayer Jane Meredith Mayer (born 1955) is an American investigative journalist who has been a staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' since 1995. She has written for the publication about money in politics; government prosecution of whistleblowers; the Un ...

for '' The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals'' (Doubleday) * 2010 –

David Finkel David Louis Finkel (born October 28, 1955) is an American journalist. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 2006 as a staff writer at ''The Washington Post''. As of January 2017, he was national enterprise editor at the ''Post''. He has also worked for the ...

for '' The Good Soldiers'' (Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar Straus and Giroux) * 2011 –

Shane Harris Shane Harris is an American journalist, author and staff writer of ''The Atlantic''. He was a senior national security writer at the The Washington Post, ''Washington Post''. He specializes in coverage of United States Intelligence Community, A ...

for '' The Watchers: The Rise of America's Surveillance State'' * 2012 – Ellen Schultz for ''Retirement Heist: How Companies Plunder and Profit from the Nest Eggs of American Workers'' * 2013 – Katherine Boo for '' Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity'' * 2014 – Dan Fagin for '' Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation'' * 2015 – Anand Giridharadas for ''The True American: Murder and Mercy in Texas'' * 2016 – Jill Leovy for ''Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America'' * 2017 –

for '' Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right'' * 2018 – Masha Gessen for ''The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia'' * 2019 – Shane Bauer for '' American Prison: A Reporter's Undercover Journey into the Business of Punishment'' ** ''No Turning Back: Life, Loss, and Hope in Wartime Syria'' by Rania Abouzeid ** ''The Poisoned City: Flint's Water and the American Urban Tragedy'' by Anna Clark ** ''Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America'' by Eliza Griswold ** ''Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America'' by

Beth Macy Beth Macy (born ) is an American journalist and non-fiction writer. She is the author of four published books, including national bestsellers ''Factory Man'' (2014) and ''Dopesick'' (2018). Early life The daughter of a factory worker, Sarah Macy ...

* 2020 – Rachel Louise Snyder for ''No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us'' ** '' She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement'' by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey ** ''Charged: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration'' by Emily Bazelon ** ''A Good Provider Is One Who Leaves: One Family and Migration in the 21st Century'' by Jason DeParle ** '' The Outlaw Ocean: Journey’s Across the Last Untamed Frontier'' by Ian Urbina * 2022 - Andrea Elliott for '' Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City'' ** ''The End of Bias: A Beginning: The Science and Practice of Overcoming Unconscious Bias'' by Jessica Nordell ** ''The Inevitable: Dispatches on the Right to Die'' by Katie Engelhart ** ''Made in China: A Prisoner, an SOS Letter, and the Hidden Cost of America’s Cheap Goods'' by Amelia Pang ** ''Planet Palm: How Palm Oil Ended Up in Everything and Endangered the World'' by Jocelyn C. Zuckerman * 2023 - Ben Rawlence for ''The Treeline: The Last Forest and the Future of Life on Earth'' ** ''The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World'' by Max Fisher ** ''My Fourth Time We Drowned: Seeking Refuge on the World's Deadliest Migration Route'' by Sally Hayden ** ''The Other Side of Prospect: A Story of Violence, Injustice, and the American City'' by Nicholas Dawidoff ** ''Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of our Nation'' by Linda Villarosa * 2024 - Patricia Evangelista for '' Some People Need Killing: A Memoir of Murder in My Country'' ** ''Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of our Planet'' by Ben Goldfarb ** ''How to Make a Killing: Blood, Death, and Dollars in American Medicine'' by Tom Mueller ** '' The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet'' by Jeff Goodell ** ''We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America'' by Roxanna Asgarian * 2025 - ** ''Gaslight: The Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the Fight for America's Energy Future'' by Jonathan Mingle ** ''On the Move: The Overheating Earth and the Uprooting of America'' by Abrahm Lustgarten ** ''Power Metal: The Race for the Resources That Will Shape the Future'' by Vince Beiser ** ''Systemic: How Racism is Making Us Sick'' by Layal Liverpool ** ''They Came for the Schools: One Town's Fight Over Race and Identity, and the New War for America's Classrooms'' by Mike Hixenbaugh

References

{{reflist

External links

List of past winners
Awards established in 1987 American non-fiction literary awards 1987 establishments in New York City New York Public Library *