Ed Yong, the staff writer at The Atlantic who has been shaping our collective understanding of the coronavirus and its impact, will receive the National Press Club Journalism Institute’s 2020 Neil and Susan Sheehan award for investigative journalism.
Yong’s in-depth analytical writing has explained, week after week, everything from the mask debate to long-haulers to how the coronavirus has seeped into America’s fault lines, and why the United States has been hit more severely than most other countries, with one-quarter of the world’s confirmed COVID‑19 cases and deaths, but just 4 percent of the global population. Through 5,000-word features, cover stories, interviews, Twitter updates, even advice to young journalists, Yong has shown compassion and integrity in a high-stakes moment when every word matters.
“Yong’s work has brought rich, real-time insights to policy makers and the public, and he’s made The Atlantic a must-read,” said Angela Greiling Keane, president of the National Press Club Journalism Institute and editorial director for States and Canada at POLITICO. The Atlantic announced an unprecedented surge in readers and subscribers starting this spring and continuing into summer and fall.
Yong is a science journalist who covers everything that is or was once alive, and has spent most of 2020 focused on the COVID-19 pandemic. He has won several awards, including the Victor Cohn Prize for medical science reporting in 2020; the Michael E. DeBakey Journalism Award for biomedical reporting in 2016; the Byron H. Waksman Award for Excellence in the Public Communication of Life Sciences in 2016; and the National Academies Keck Science Communication Award in 2010. “I Contain Multitudes,” his first book, became a New York Times bestseller and a clue on Jeopardy!. Yong has done a TED talk on mind-controlling parasites and has a Chatham Island black robin named after him.
The annual Neil and Susan Sheehan award for investigative journalism recognizes work that best reflects the Sheehans’ extraordinary commitment to the principle that a vibrant democracy depends on an informed citizenry and a free press. The award promotes the practice of investigative journalism exemplifying compassion, courage and integrity.
The Institute will confer the 2020 Sheehan award at its annual Fourth Estate Gala on Nov. 18. The evening will honor CBS News president Susan Zirinsky with the National Press Club’s signature Fourth Estate Award. The evening will also feature the John Aubuchon Press Freedom Award winners: Maria Ressa and the Rappler team, who have been the target of repeated efforts by the government of Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte to silence them; and Linda Tirado, the author and freelance photographer who lost most of the sight in her left eye when a police officer’s foam bullet hit her while she was taking pictures of a street protest in Minneapolis on May 30.
The gala event is a fundraiser for the Journalism Institute, the nonprofit affiliate of the Club. Financial support for the Sheehan Award is provided by a generous endowment from long-time friends of the Sheehans who wish to remain anonymous. Neil Sheehan is the author of “A Bright Shining Lie,” which won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction in 1989. Susan Sheehan is the author of eight works of nonfiction. In 1983, she received a Pulitzer Prize for “Is There No Place on Earth For Me?”
Previously, the Sheehan Award was given in 2019 to Julie K. Brown, the Miami Herald journalist who gave voice to Jeffrey Epstein’s long-ignored victims and prompted a legal re-examination of Epstein’s predatory behavior and the culture that enabled it; and in 2018 to New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey for their reporting on Harvey Weinstein, which elevated the #MeToo movement.
For information on Fourth Estate sponsorship opportunities or to purchase tickets, please click here or contact Julie Moos, Executive Director of the National Press Club Journalism Institute at [email protected].
The National Press Club Journalism Institute promotes an engaged global citizenry through an independent and free press, and equips journalists with skills and standards to inform the public in ways that inspire civic engagement. The National Press Club, the world’s leading professional organization for journalists, represents more than 3,000 reporters, editors and professional communicators worldwide.
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