The Fund for American Studies (TFAS) is proud to present James Bennet of The Economist with the Kenneth Y. Tomlinson Award for Courageous Journalism and Lance Morrow of The Wall Street Journal with the Thomas L. Phillips Career Achievement Award at the 31st Annual TFAS Journalism Awards Dinner in New York City on November 12, 2024.
TFAS will present James Bennet, Lexington columnist and a senior editor at The Economist, with the Kenneth Y. Tomlinson Award for Courageous Journalism for his excellence in reporting and determination to present the truth. Formerly, Bennett was the editorial page editor of The New York Times, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, and an editor for Washington Monthly.
Alongside Bennet, Lance Morrow will be presented with the Thomas L. Phillips Career Achievement Award for his significant contributions to the field of journalism throughout his distinguished career. Morrow is a contributing columnist at The Wall Street Journal and former TIME magazine editor and essayist. He was previously the editorial page editor of The New York Times, where he led the paper’s opinion department to two Pulitzer Prizes in four years, its first in more than a decade.
In addition to honoring Bennet and Morrow, TFAS will officially award seven early-career journalists with the 2024-25 Robert Novak Journalism Fellowship. Audrey Fahlberg of National Review, Carine Hajjar of The Boston Globe, Park MacDougald of Tablet Magazine, Emmet Penney of Compact Magazine, Rachel Roth Aldhizer, Hannah Rowan of Modern Age, and Nic Rowan of The Lamp Magazine will each spend one year researching and providing in-depth reporting on their chosen topics surrounding the principles of a free society. Topics include instability in the Middle East, the rise of weight loss drugs, and America’s fertility crisis, among others.
The recipients of the 2024-25 Joseph Rago Memorial Fellowship for Excellence in Journalism will also be awarded. For the first time since its creation in 2018, two exceptional journalists will be awarded the fellowship – Jillian Lederman and Luke Lyman. Named after Joseph Rago, a Wall Street Journal editorial board member who passed away in 2017, the Rago Fellowship awards two qualified aspiring journalists with a nine-month internship with The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page.
TFAS is proud to be an organization dedicated to nurturing the next generation of courageous leaders in journalism. Many of our participants go on to achieve remarkable success as Pulitzer Prize winners, best-selling authors, and editors at prestigious national publications.