Mark Silverman, editor of the Tennessean, in Nashville, has been selected to receive the Benjamin C. Bradlee Editor of the Year Award, the National Press Foundation has announced.

The award, nation’s oldest and most prestigious award for editors, was given to Silverman because of his paper’s “outstanding coverage of unexpected floods in 2010 and its innovative use of social media platforms to extend that coverage and bind its community together,” according to the NPF selection committee. The award carries a $5,000 prize and an engraved crystal vase.

The award will be presented at NPF’s 28th annual awards dinner, on March 1, 2011, in Washington. Other winners include Andrea Mitchell, NBC News and MSNBC, receiving the Sol Taishoff Award for Excellence in broadcast Journalism; and Matt Wuerker, receiving the Berryman Award as Editorial cartoonist of the Year.

The Bradlee selection committee included George Condon (National Journal); John Walcott (Smart Brief); Chuck Lewis (Hearst); Sandy Johnson (Center for Public Integrity) and Jerry Seib, Washington bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal. Condon chaired the panel.

For information about the NPF dinner, contact kerry@nationalpress.org. For information about NPF or its programs, contact bob@nationalpress.org.

2010 Benjamin C. Bradlee Editor of the Year Award
Mark Silverman / The Tennessean