Dana Bash Wins NPF Award

Dana Bash, CNN’s chief political correspondent, is being honored with the National Press Foundation’s Sol Taishoff Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism.

Bash will receive the Taishoff award at NPF’s annual journalism awards dinner on Thursday, Feb. 13, at the Marriott Marquis hotel in Washington, D.C., along with other award winners. Learn more about the NPF dinner here.

The NPF judges praised Bash for representing the fundamental values of journalism and her reputation for reporting excellence and fairness — as evidence, they pointed to her previous three congressional reporting awards from NPF.

Bash won NPF’s prestigious Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for Distinguished Reporting of Congress an unprecedented three times: in 2012, for reporting on a STOCK Act loophole that could have allowed family members of lawmakers to profit from insider information on trades; in 2010, for her reporting on Congressional earmarks and senatorial “holds”; and in 2002, for her scoop about the government’s secret intercepts of Al Qaeda translations on Sept. 10, 2001.

The Taishoff award carries a $5,000 prize and an engraved plaque.

Dana Bash is CNN’s chief political correspondent based in Washington, serving as the network’s lead reporter covering campaigns and Congress. She regularly serves as a moderator for CNN’s political town hall specials and debates, including for CNN’s first debate of the 2020 election cycle. In 2016, Bash conducted sit-down interviews with a majority of the candidates, including Donald Trump; Sens. Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Bernie Sanders; and Govs. Jeb Bush and John Kasich. In addition, Bash secured several extensive interviews with the candidates’ families and spouses.

Prior to covering Congress and presidential campaigns, Bash was CNN’s White House correspondent during the George W. Bush administration and served as editor in CNN’s Washington bureau, where she helped plan and coordinate the network’s coverage of Capitol Hill, the State Department and key issues such as Medicare and Social Security.

The Taishoff family founded Broadcasting Magazine (now Broadcasting & Cable); NPF created the Sol Taishoff Award in 1983 to honor Taishoff for his support of unrestricted speech for broadcast journalists. Previous recipients include Lester Holt, Bret Baier, Martha Raddatz, George Stephanopoulos, Andrea Mitchell, Gwen Ifill and more. The list of distinguished winners is here.

The National Press Foundation is an independent nonprofit that is run by and for journalists. NPF’s sole mission is to educate practicing journalists about today’s most pressing issues and to provide critical toolbox training.

For more information about dinner sponsorships, please contact Jason Zaragoza at jason@nationalpress.org.

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