FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE MAY 18, 2006
Contact: Julia Rothwax, 212 284-7637, jrothwax@theatlantic.com

LAFRANIERE WINNER OF $25,000 MICHAEL KELLY AWARD for 2006
** Honored at awards dinner tonight in Washington DC **

David Bradley, chairman of Atlantic Media Company, announced tonight that New York Times reporter Sharon LaFraniere is this year's recipient of the Michael Kelly Award. She won the award for her reporting from Southern Africa on the struggles faced by the women in the region.

The $25,000 award is given annually to a journalist whose work exemplifies a quality that animated Michael Kelly's own career: the fearless pursuit and expression of truth. Kelly, who was the editor of two Atlantic Media publications, The Atlantic Monthly and National Journal, was killed while covering the war in Iraq in 2003.

According to a statement from the award judges, "[LaFraniere's] reporting provides a window into African culture that is both unflinching and respectful, dispassionate and intimate. As LaFraniere's articles demonstrate, the "fearless pursuit and expression of truth" can manifest itself not only in reporting from a war zone or disaster area, but also in covering the most mundane circumstances of everyday life--the village without a doctor, the school without a toilet, and the widow without a choice."

In addition to LaFraniere, four journalists were recognized as finalists by the judges: Kurt Eichenwald, a reporter with The New York Times; James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, reporters with the New York Times; Chris Rose, columnist for the Times Picayune in New Orleans; and Cam Simpson, Foreign and National Correspondent for the Chicago Tribune. The finalists will each receive $3,000.

The journalists were honored at a dinner tonight in Washington.

Atlantic Media received a total of 83 entries from reporters and editors at newspapers and magazines from across the country. The award is for work published in 2005.

A panel of five journalists served as judges for this year's award: Hanna Rosin, a staff writer for the Washington Post; Victoria Pope, a managing editor of National Geographic; Maximillian Potter, executive editor of 5280, the Denver city magazine; Cullen Murphy, senior editor of The Atlantic; and Charles Green, editor of National Journal.

***

In covering southern Africa for The New York Times, Sharon LaFraniere has made the challenges facing the region's women her specialty. She has written about widows forced to have sex with their in-laws as a way of spiritual "cleansing," women who have been incontinent for years because of birthing injuries, even though a $300 operation could repair the damage, and teenage girls who drop out of school because there are no toilets to use when they have their periods. Her reporting provides a window into African culture that is both unflinching and respectful, dispassionate and intimate. As LaFraniere's articles demonstrate, the "fearless pursuit and expression of truth" can manifest itself not only in reporting from a war zone or disaster area, but also in covering the most mundane circumstances of everyday life--the village without a doctor, the school without a toilet, and the widow without a choice.

Sharon LaFraniere has covered southern Africa for The New York Times since 2003. She is based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Before joining the Times, she spent five years as a foreign correspondent for The Washington Post, based in Moscow. At the Post, she also served as an acting deputy national editor, an investigative reporter on the national staff, and a Metro investigative reporter. She began her journalism career as a general assignment reporter for the Louisville Times. Born in Detroit, Michigan, LaFraniere, 50, received a B.A. degree magna cum laude from Brown University and a M.S. degree in journalism from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. She is married to Michael Wines, the Johannesburg bureau chief for The New York Times. They have three children.

A six-month investigation by New York Times reporter Kurt Eichenwald into online child pornography triggered a federal criminal investigation, the rescue of countless children from exploitation, and the gratitude of parents from around the world. Eichenwald told the stories of children who were encouraged by adults to perform sexually for Internet audiences by using inexpensive Webcams in the privacy of their bedrooms. In the process of reporting the story, Eichenwald convinced a teenager who had been performing online for five years to shut down his Web site, kick drugs, and turn over information on other children involved in online pornography to federal prosecutors. After the story was published, one tearful father told Eichenwald that the article had prompted him to check his son's computer, where he found sexual communications through a "chat" feature in an online game his son played. The boy was 8 years old.

Kurt Eichenwald, a senior writer and investigative reporter at The New York Times, has written about corporate corruption and related topics for more than a decade. He began reporting for the paper's business section in 1988. Earlier in his career he was a writer-researcher for CBS News in the election and survey unit, an associate editor at National Journal, and a news clerk for The New York Times in Washington and New York. Eichenwald, 44, was a winner of the George Polk Award in 1996 for his articles about deficiencies in the American system of kidney dialysis care. In 1998, he won another Polk Award for a series of articles about allegations of corruption at the nation's largest private hospital chain, the Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp. His most recent book, Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story, is about the Enron scandal. Born in New York City, Eichenwald graduated from Swarthmore College. He is married and has three children.

The series of reports on American intelligence-gathering efforts began in almost an understated manner on December 16, 2005, with the headline "Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts" and the subhead "Secret Order to Widen Domestic Monitoring." But in this lengthy--and superbly written and documented--article, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau signalled that a rock had been lifted from above one of the government's most closely held secrets. In its prosecution of the war against terror, the Bush administration had authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on the telephone and email conversations of thousands of Americans and others inside the United States--without warrants. By exposing the National Security Agency's domestic wiretaps, Risen and Lichtblau brought an issue into public view that goes to the very heart of our democracy: whether the chief executive is accountable to the laws of the land--or is a law unto himself.

James E. Risen joined The New York Times as a correspondent in the Washington bureau, covering national security and intelligence, in May 1998. Previously, he served as a correspondent for the Los Angeles Times from 1984 to 1998, covering national security and intelligence, economics, and Detroit. From 1981 to 1984, he worked as a reporter for The Detroit Free Press covering the auto industry and labor. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Risen, 50, received a B.A. degree in history from Brown University and an M.S. degree in journalism from Northwestern University. He is married, has three children and lives in Maryland.

Eric Lichtblau joined The New York Times in September 2002 as Washington correspondent covering the Justice Department in the Washington bureau. Previously, Lichtblau was at the Los Angeles Times for 15 years, where he also covered the Justice Department in the Washington bureau from 1999 to 2002; before that, he did stints on the investigative team in Los Angeles and covered various law enforcement beats. Lichtblau was born in Syracuse, N.Y., and graduated from Cornell University.

Lichtblau and Risen were awarded a 2006 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting.

In the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the people of New Orleans were scared and scattered about the country, grasping for meaning and searching for even a shred of hope. Fortunately, they had Chris Rose. Writing for The Times-Picayune, Rose gave his readers perspective and voiced their truths, offering insights and an emotional depth that news stories and photographs could not convey. In his columns, Rose created a front stoop where all of New Orleans could gather and begin again to feel like a community. In the words of one of his readers, Rose was an "elegant Everyman." Writing about how he struggled to explain the aftermath of Katrina to his daughter, Rose quotes his daughter as asking him, "Is everything in New Orleans broken?" In Rose's columns, he makes it clear that while New Orleans has been bent and banged up, it is far from broken.

Chris Rose began working at The Times-Picayune in the summer of 1984, covering crime in the suburb of Jefferson Parish and the politics of two small incorporated cities. Over the years, he covered local and national politics, general features, regional culture and economics, and New Orleans nightlife, music and personalities. Upon his return to New Orleans on the Monday after Hurricane Katrina, he began to cover the early stirrings of life in the streets and has stayed with that beat ever since, chronicling the city as it puts itself back together, shakes off its trauma, and tries to find footing as a viable community. The Pulitzer Prize Board named him a finalist in the commentary category for his post-Katrina columns. Rose, who was born in Washington, D.C. in 1960 and graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1982, is a frequent commentator for National Public Radio's Morning Edition and a writer/performer of several critically acclaimed stage shows in New Orleans. He is married with three young children.

In a gripping two-part series, Cam Simpson writes about an Iraq tragedy most of us probably never noticed: Last year 12 Nepalese men were kidnapped from an unprotected convoy traveling to an American military base in Iraq. They were eventually killed, an event captured in a grisly video. With the zeal of an investigator and the heart of a novelist, Simpson retraces what happened to the men. He travels to Nepal where he reconstructs, in heartbreaking detail, the circumstances that drove the 12 men to find work overseas. He then goes to the Middle East to reveal how large military support companies such as Halliburton use a string of shady contractors to lure poor men into dangerous work. These are victims of the Iraq war few would have mourned if not for Simpson.

Cam Simpson, 39, is a Washington-based correspondent for the Chicago Tribune. He covers U.S. foreign policy and also works on investigative projects in Washington and overseas. Simpson previously covered terrorism and the Department of Justice in Washington for the Tribune, and federal crime and organized crime in Chicago. Prior to joining the Tribune in 2000, Simpson worked for the Chicago Sun-Times, where he covered federal and organized crime, the FBI and U.S. courts. He has also worked for The Indianapolis Star, The Evansville Courier and The News-Gazette in Champaign, Ill. He is a native of St. Charles, Ill., and majored in political science and journalism at Eastern Illinois University. Simpson is a two-time winner of the George Polk Award, once for National Reporting and once for International Reporting. Simpson is the recipient of numerous other state, regional, national and international journalism awards, including the Overseas Press Club's Madeline Dane Ross Award and the Tribune's own Edward Scott Beck Award for Foreign Reporting. He lives in Washington with his wife, Rima.