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

Winners

* 1988 – James Reston for fifty years of journalism * 1989 –

Judy Woodruff Judy Carline Woodruff (born November 20, 1946) is an American broadcast journalist who has worked in network, cable, and public television news since 1976. She is the anchor and managing editor of ''PBS NewsHour''. Woodruff has covered every presi ...

for television reporting of the Iran–Contra affair * 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 ''From Beirut to Jerusalem'' (1989) is a book by American journalist Thomas L. Friedman chronicling his days as a reporter in Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War and in Jerusalem through the first year of the Intifada. Friedman wrote a 17-pa ...

'' * 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 David J. Remnick (born October 29, 1958) is an American journalist, writer and editor. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for his book '' Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire'', and is also the author of ''Resurrection'' and ''King of th ...

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 Tina Rosenberg (born April 14, 1960) is an American journalist and the author of three books. For one of them, '' The Haunted Land: Facing Europe's Ghosts After Communism'' (1995), she won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction and the Nati ...

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 Patrick E. Tyler is an author and formerly chief correspondent for ''The New York Times''.CORRESPONDENT BIOGRAPHY. https://www.nytimes.com/ref/readersopinions/patrick-tyler-bio.html Readers' Opinions ''Accessed on April 25, 2008'' He is the au ...

for '' A Great Wall: Six Presidents and China: An Investigative History'' * 2001 –

Elaine Sciolino Elaine Sciolino is an author and contributing writer of ''The New York Times'', writing from France since 2002. She grew up near Buffalo (NY) and began her career as a journalist with Newsweek magazine ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly onl ...

for ''Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of Iran'' * 2002 – Nina Bernstein for ''The Lost Children of Wilder: The Epic Struggle to Change Foster Care'' * 2003 –

Keith Bradsher Keith Bradsher is a business and economics reporter and the Shanghai bureau chief of '' The New York Times''. He was previously the chief Hong Kong correspondent since 2002, reporting on Greater China, Southeast Asia and South Asia on topics i ...

for ''High and Mighty: SUVs--The World’s Most Dangerous Vehicles and How They Got That Way'' * 2004 –

Dana Priest Dana Louise Priest (born May 23, 1957) is an American journalist, writer and teacher. She has worked for nearly 30 years for the '' Washington Post'' and became the third John S. and James L. Knight Chair in Public Affairs Journalism at the Uni ...

for ''The Mission: Waging War and Keeping Peace with America’s Military'' (W. W. Norton & Company) * 2005 –

Jason DeParle Jason ( ; ) was an ancient Greek mythological hero and leader of the Argonauts, whose quest for the Golden Fleece featured in Greek literature. He was the son of Aeson, the rightful king of Iolcos. He was married to the sorceress Medea. He ...

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 Uni ...

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 ''The Good Soldiers'' (2009) is a non-fiction book about the 2007 troop surge in Iraq written by David Finkel, chronicling the deployment of the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, nicknamed ...

'' (Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar Straus and Giroux) * 2011 – Shane Harris 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 Dan Fagin (born February 1, 1963) is an American journalist who specializes in environmental science. He won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for his best-selling book '' Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation''. ''Toms Rive ...

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 Eliza Griswold (born February 9, 1973) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist and poet. Griswold is currently a contributing writer to ''The New Yorker'' and a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University. She is the author of ...

** ''Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America'' by

Beth Macy Beth Macy (born c. 1964) is an American journalist and non-fiction writer. She is the author of four published books, including national bestsellers ''Factory Man'' (2014) and ''Dope Sick'' (2018). Early life The daughter of a factory worker, S ...

* 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 Jodi Kantor (born April 21, 1975) is an American journalist. She is a ''New York Times'' correspondent whose work has covered the workplace, technology, and gender. She has been the paper's Arts & Leisure editor and covered two presidential campa ...

and

Megan Twohey Megan Twohey () is an American journalist with ''The New York Times''. She has written investigative reports for Reuters, the '' Chicago Tribune,'' and the ''Milwaukee Journal Sentinel''. Twohey's investigative reports have exposed exploitativ ...

** ''Charged: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration'' by

Emily Bazelon Emily Bazelon (born March 4, 1971) is an American journalist. She is a staff writer for ''The New York Times Magazine,'' a senior research fellow at Yale Law School, and co-host of the ''Slate'' podcast ''Political Gabfest''. She is a former sen ...

** ''A Good Provider Is One Who Leaves: One Family and Migration in the 21st Century'' by

** '' 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''

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 *