Freelance journalists Patricia Kime and Ilie Mitaru have won the National Press Foundation’s Wounded Warrior Project® Award for Coverage of Veterans in the small and large news organization categories, respectively.
Kime won for her work appearing in Military.com exposing the difficulty veterans encountered when attempting to access mental health services through the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), including mysteriously canceled appointments and lack of coordination with outside providers. As a result of her reporting, a bipartisan group of lawmakers called for the VA to address the shortfalls in care.
“Kime’s work is the kind of journalism we need and that journalists aspire to,” said the NPF judges. “Her reporting on the VA’s challenges in providing sufficient mental health care to meet current demands clearly demonstrates her initiative: She got all the data, then found individual stories that matched that data and made the numbers relatable. When Congress began asking questions about veterans’ access to mental health, it was easy to conclude that Patricia Kime’s reporting was a catalyst.”
Credit: Ilie Mitaru
Mitaru won for his feature and photo essay in BBC Future on an experimental program pairing incarcerated combat veterans with horse therapy inside a Texas jail.
“Mitaru’s work brings attention to an underreported aspect of incarceration,” said the NPF judges. “Access and trust are at such a premium in this story, and only a very skilled and sincere photojournalist could bring this story into public discourse.”
The award carries a $5,000 prize for each category, and the winners were honored at the National Press Foundation’s annual journalism awards dinner March 12, 2026 in Washington, D.C.
Honorable Mention to NPR, Reveal, The War Horse
NPF judges also selected two projects to receive Honorable Mention recognition.
In the large news organization category, Chris Arnold and Quil Lawrence of NPR were cited for their investigation into a VA loan crisis. Their reporting led Congress to act to prevent more than 30,000 veterans from losing their homes.
In the small news organization category, Jim O’Grady of Reveal and Thomas Brennan of The War Horse were cited for leading a collaborative project that gave a powerful account of how the Battle of Fallujah continues to haunt a platoon of Marines 20 years later. Mother Jones edited and co-produced the text component of the project.
Wounded Warrior Project® and the National Press Foundation established the Wounded Warrior Project® Award for Excellence in Coverage of Veterans to elevate the discourse around veterans’ affairs in the media. By recognizing outstanding journalism, the awards seek to inspire high-quality reporting that fosters a deeper understanding of veterans’ needs, struggles, and triumphs.
Last year, the inaugural award went to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for coverage about firearm suicide and Long Lead for its coverage of the homeless crisis among disabled veterans in the multimedia feature, “Home of the Brave.”
