The Meyer “Mike” Berger Award | Columbia Journalism School

The Meyer “Mike” Berger Award

The Berger Award, named after the late New York Times reporter Meyer “Mike” Berger, is awarded to a reporter(s) for an outstanding example of in­-depth, human interest reporting.

2023 Mike Berger Award Winner

2023 Berger Award Jurors’ Citation:

Lynzy Billing is the winner of the 2023 Meyer “Mike” Berger Award for her ProPublica story entitled, “The Night Raids,” about CIA-directed death squads called “Zero Units” in Afghanistan that killed countless hundreds. Often raids were based on staggeringly flawed intelligence and resulted in scores of executions--farmers, students, and teachers with no connection to the Taliban. For over three years, working solo for most of them, Billing did diligent shoe-leather reporting across dangerous swaths of Afghanistan.

She takes the reader into the shadows of the U.S. war on terrorism that accomplished the opposite of what was intended. “You go on night raids, make more enemies, then you gotta go on more night raids for the more enemies you now have to kill,” a member of the U.S. special operations forces told Billing, about his regularly going out with Zero Units.

It began as a personal quest. Billing’s mother and twin sister were killed thirty years earlier in a night raid in the civil war that followed the defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Her father later died in the conflict. She soon learned about the Zero Units, and visited the sites of 30 raids. She interviewed doctors, forensic examiners, eyewitnesses, and family members of civilians shot point-blank. She gained the trust of Afghan commandos who questioned their actions, and interviewed the former Afghan spy chief who admitted to raids being conducted on flawed intelligence. Billing’s gripping and powerfully written story echoes the CIA-spawned “Phoenix Program” during the Vietnam War that also killed innocents. “The Night Raids” should be read by U.S. citizens so they know what is being done in their name, as well as everyone at the CIA’s Langley, Virginia, headquarters.

Read the full announcement.

How to Enter

The Berger Award is now closed for nominations.

About

Members of the faculty of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism judge the entries. The award, which consists of a certificate from Columbia and a $1,500 prize, is conferred annually at the School’s Journalism Day ceremony in May.

Berger won a 1950 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting for his story on a veteran who went on a shooting spree in Camden, New Jersey, killing several residents. He then re­introduced the newspaper’s “About New York” column in the early 1950s, setting the standard for evocative and eloquent human interest reporting. Berger passed away in 1959. Louis Schweitzer, a New York industrialist who admired Berger’s work, created the Berger Award in 1960.

Past Winners

See past winners:

Year

Name

Organization

Work

Judges

2021 Joe Sexton ProPublica He’d Waited Decades to Argue His Innocence" Joanne Faryon, Meg Kissinger, Dale Maharidge
2020 Thomas Curwen and Francine Orr Los Angeles Times The Street Within,” an immersive series that followed eight residents of a homeless encampment who were fast-tracked to apartments in South Los Angeles. Joanne Faryon, Meg Kissinger, Dale Maharidge
2019 Terrence McCoy The Washington Post A series on Americans who were challenged in deeply personal ways by some of the most significant political and social issues of the day including the opioid crisis and immigration: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Joanne Faryon, Meg Kissinger, Dale Maharidge
2018 John Woodrow Cox The Washington Post A series on children affected by gun violence: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 David Hajdu, Meg Kissinger, Karen Stabiner
2017 Eli Saslow The Washington Post A series showcasing pockets of suffering in white America: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 David Hajdu, Dale Maharidge, Paula Span

2016

Ken Armstrong and T. Christian Miller

The Marshall Project and ProPublica

An Unbelievable Story of Rape

David Hajdu, Dale Maharidge and Ruth Padawer

2015

Joanne Faryon and Brad Racino

inewsource

An Impossible Choice: Deciding When a Life is No Longer Worth Living

Andie Tucher, David Hajdu and Dale Maharidge

2014

Julia O’Malley

Anchorage Daily News

“The Things that Happen: Two Boys and Cancer”

Andie Tucher, David Hajdu and Jonathan Weiner

2013

Sheri Fink

Freelance

A series of pieces exploring the catastrophic consequences of bureaucratic, structural, and political failures during the deadly hurricane season of 2012.

David Hajdu, Michael Shapiro and Andie Tucher

2012

John Branch

New York Times

Punched Out: The Life and Death of a Hockey Enforcer

Sheila Coronel, Andie Tucher and Dale Maharidge

2011

Anne Barnard

New York Times

A Parish Tested

Columbia Journalism School Faculty

2010

Joanna Connors

The Plain Dealer

"The Sheltering Sky"

Columbia Journalism School Faculty

2009

Brendan McCarthy

Times-Picayune

Homicide 37

Columbia Journalism School Faculty

2008

Michael Paulson

The Boston Globe

"Ma Siss’s Place: The Birth of a Church"

Columbia Journalism School Faculty

2007

Abigail Tucker

The Baltimore Sun

2006 Reporting

Columbia Journalism School Faculty

 

 

For a full list of past recipients, click here (PDF).

Judges

The Berger Award is judged by Columbia Journalism School faculty.

Contact

212-854-6468
[email protected]

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