Remarks from NPF Board Chair Donna Leinwand Leger at the May 4, 2022 awards dinner in Washington, D.C.:

The Chair’s Citation confers recognition on an individual or individuals whose accomplishments fall outside the traditional categories of excellence. This year rather than recognize a single person or organization, the Chair’s Citation commends the war correspondents — past and present.

These journalists take great personal risk to deliver essential, objective reporting from conflict zones. As the war in Ukraine enters its third month, the toll on journalists grows — at least six journalists have been killed and more than a dozen have been grievously wounded.

Yet they carry on, chronicling the human consequences of war, exposing war crimes and shining a light on human rights abuses.

These professional witnesses, these truth-tellers are all the more important now as governments weaponize disinformation.

Indeed, the reporting from the field has been so robust and so meaningful that Russian President Vladimir Putin has closed independent media outlets, blocked social media, and made it a crime carrying a 15-year prison sentence to publish or broadcast what it deems “false news” about the military.

So tonight, I ask you to raise your glasses to those courageous souls who have put themselves in peril to bring us the news….to the war correspondents.