Mirror Award Winners

2025 Winners

Best Single Article/Story

Katie Thornton, Rolling Stone: “Jesus, Take The Dial” (subscription required)

Best Profile

Jack Herrera, Columbia Journalism Review: “La Periodista de Iowa” 

Best Commentary

Clare Malone, The New Yorker: “Media Writing” (subscription required)

• “The Meme-ificiation of American Politics” 
• “Is the Media Prepared for an Extinction-Level Event?” 
• “Is Hunterbrook Media a News Outlet or a Hedge Fund?” 

John M. Higgins Award for Best In-Depth/Enterprise Reporting

Manuel Roig-Franzia and Hope Hodge Seck 
The Washington Post (subscription required) 

• “A Taliban revenge killing prompts questions, removal of an acclaimed documentary”  

• “Murrow Award rescinded for acclaimed ‘Retrograde’ documentary”  

2025 Finalists

Finalists for Best Single Article/Story

• Brian Stelter, The Atlantic: “The Real Story of the Crisis at The Washington Post” 
• Kyle Paoletta, Columbia Journalism Review: “A New Normal” 
• John Daniszewski, Laura Colarusso, Megan Cattel and Fatma Khaled, Nieman Reports: “Unparalleled and Unprecedented”

Finalists for Best Profile

• Amaris Castillo, Poynter.org: “In New Orleans, a pioneering nonprofit newsroom ponders a future beyond its founder”
• Aidan McLaughlin, The Spectator World: “Inside the unlikely success of Patrick Bet-David”  

Finalists for Best Commentary

• Jon Allsop, Columbia Journalism Review
  • “The cynicism of blaming the media for the Trump assassination attempt”   
  • “Is the press ‘sanewashing’ Trump? 
  • “NATO bombed a Chinese embassy. Twenty-five years on, the battle for the narrative continues.” 
• Jay Caspian Kang, The New Yorker: “Fault Lines” (subscription required)
  • “How Biased is the Media, Really?” 
  • “Arguing Ourselves to Death” 
  • “It’s Time to Show Trump Speeches Again” 
• Jessica Bennett, The New York Times
  • “The Audacity of E. Jean Carroll” 
  • “‘Accordion Hands’ and ‘Caterpillar Eyebrows’: Trump Meets the Female Gaze” 
  • “Trump Is ‘Weird,’ Vance Is ‘Creepy.’ Finally, the Democrats Start Name-Calling”

Finalists for John M. Higgins Award for Best In-Depth/Enterprise Reporting

• Jason Buch, Texas Observer/palabra/PBS
  • “La Gordiloca Goes To Court” 
  • “La Gordiloca Lost, So did Journalism” 
  • “Freedom to Inform” 
• Ann Cooper, Gabe Bullard and Laura Colarusso, Nieman Reports
  • “Unerased” 
  • “Saving the First Draft of History” 
  • “We Had No Place to Save the Stories” 

Judges

Top Tier
Andy Abrahams ’82 
Dorian Benkoil
Dorothy Bland
Tracy Breton ’73 
Margaret Carlson
Melissa Chessher
Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson
Joel Kaplan
Howard Polskin ’73
J. Max Robins
Mary Romano ’86
David Rubin
Robert Thompson

First Tier

Omneya Aboushanab ’18  
Wasim Ahmad G’10, G’25
Sarah Barth
Paul Brady G’05
Contessa Brewer ’96
Nina Brown ’01
Kristen Canada G’14
Richard J. Chang ’21
Shelvia Dancy ’00
Nick DeSantis G’13
Connor Ennis ’00
Cheryl Brody Franklin ’04, G’24
Alessandra Foresto
Aileen Gallagher ’99, G’20  
Fiona Gibb ’95
Jon Glass
Brad Gorham
Eric Grode ’93
Roy Gutterman ’93, L’00
Carolyn Hedges G’07, G’11
Yerin Kim ’18
Ken Kneeland ’00
Keith Kobland
Will Leitch
Brett LoGiurato ’11 
Jim Osman ’93
Cindy Perman ’94
Maria P. Russell G’72
Kevin Sajdak
Chandran Sankaran
Michael Scotto ’01 
Brian Sheehan
Robert Shields ’93
Molly Simms
David Spiegel ’05
Denise Valenti ’94