Dorothy Butler Gilliam, the first African American woman reporter at The Washington Post and a long-time mentor in the journalism industry, accepted the W.M. Kiplinger Distinguished Contributions to Journalism Award from the National Press Foundation at NPF’s awards dinner February 15, 2024.

The Kiplinger Award was created in 1983 to “honor persons who have, through their vision and leadership, strengthened American journalism and furthered the efforts to establish the highest quality in American journalism.”

The NPF judging panel said Gilliam, 87, “cracked glass ceilings” and fought her entire life “to preserve the values and the virtues of journalism.”

Gilliam started her career at Black weeklies, including the Louisville Defender, the Tri-State Defender and JET magazine, before joining the Washington Post in 1961 as a reporter on the city desk.

She served as the president of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) from 1993 to 1995 and taught journalism at American University and Howard University in Washington, D.C.

“She has always made time to cultivate and encourage younger journalists,” NPF judges said.

Dorothy Butler Gilliam with the 2024 Widening the Pipeline fellows, Photo byt: Lisa Nipp

Gilliam created the Young Journalists Development Program, which was designed to bring more young people into the journalism world, for The Washington Post in 1997. And in 2004, while a Fellow at The George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs she founded Prime Movers Media, the nation’s first journalism mentorship program for underserved students at urban schools.

She published her autobiography, Trailblazer, in 2019.

Past winners of the W.M. Kiplinger Distinguished Contributions to Journalism Award include Scott Simon, Paul Steiger, Dick Tofel, Diane Rehm, Clarence Page and Katherine Graham.