The Goldsmith Book Prize is a literary award for books published in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.

Description

The award is meant to recognize works that "[improve] government through an examination of the intersection between press, politics, and public policy." The prize is awarded to the book published in the previous year that best exemplifies the fulfillment of this goal. The first such prize was awarded in 1993. The program was expanded in 2002 to include two separate book prizes, for trade and academic works.

The Goldsmith Awards Program, launched in 1991, is based at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy

Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy

The Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University, named after Joan Shorenstein, explores the intersection of press, politics and public policy in theory and practice, striving to bridge the gap between journalists and scholars, and between them and the...

 at the John F. Kennedy School of Government

John F. Kennedy School of Government

The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University is a public policy and public administration school, and one of Harvard's graduate and professional schools...

, a part of Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

. The center also gives out the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting

Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting

The Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting is an award for journalists administered by the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University. The program was launched in 1991, with the goal of exposing examples of poor government, and encouraging good...

, and the Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism.

Book Prize Winners

• 2010

Academic: Matthew Hindman, The Myth of Digital Democracy

Trade: John Maxwell Hamilton, Journalism's Roving Eye: A History of American Foreign Reporting

• 2009

Academic: Markus Prior, Post-Broadcast Democracy: How Media Choice Increases Inequality in Political Involvement and Polarizes Elections.

Trade: Jane Mayer

Jane Mayer

Jane Mayer is an American investigative journalist who has been a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine since 1995...

, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals

• 2008

Academic: Diana C. Mutz, In Defense of Negativity: Attack Ads in Presidential Campaigns

Trade: Ted Gup

Ted Gup

Ted Gup , a 1968 graduate of Western Reserve Academy in Hudson, Ohio, is a writer noted for being the first to reveal publicly in 1992 the existence of a large underground bunker at West Virginia's famed Greenbrier Resort to house the Congress of the United States in case of a nuclear attack on...

, Nation of Secrets: The Threat to Democracy and the American Way of Life

• 2007

Academic: John G. Geer, Hearing the Other Side: Deliberative versus Participatory Democracy

Trade: Gene Roberts

Gene Roberts (journalist)

Gene Roberts is an American journalist and professor of journalism. Roberts was national editor at The New York Times, executive editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer from 1972 to 1990, and managing editor of The New York Times from 1994 to 1997...

 and Hank Klibanoff

Hank Klibanoff

Hank Klibanoff was the Managing Editor for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution until June 24, 2008 when he stepped down. He received the Pulitzer prize for history in 2007 for the book The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation, co-written with Gene Roberts.He...

, The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle and the Awakening of a Nation

• 2006

Academic: James A. Stimson, Tides of Consent: How Public Opinion Shapes American Politics

Trade: Geoffrey R. Stone

Geoffrey R. Stone

Geoffrey R. Stone is an American law professor. He is currently the Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School.-Dean of the Chicago Law School:...

, Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism

• 2005

Academic: Daniel C. Hallin and Paolo Mancini, Comparing Media Systems: Three Models of Media and Politics

Trade: Paul Starr

Paul Starr

Paul Starr is a Pulitzer Prize-winning professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University. He is also the co-editor and co-founder of The American Prospect, a notable liberal magazine which was created in 1990...

, The Creation of the Media: Political Origins of Modern Communications

• 2004

Academic: Scott L. Althaus, Collective Preferences in Democratic Politics: Opinion Surveys and the Will of the People

Paul M. Kellstedt, The Mass Media and the Dynamics of American Racial Attitudes

Trade: Bill Katovsky and Timothy Carlson, Embedded: The Media at War in Iraq

• 2003

Academic: Doris Graber, Processing Politics: Learning from Television in the Internet Age

Trade: Leonard Downie, Jr.

Leonard Downie, Jr.

Leonard "Len" Downie, Jr. , was the executive editor of The Washington Post. He held the position for seventeen years, starting September 1, 1991, after serving as managing editor for seven years. Downie announced his retirement as executive editor on Monday, June 23, 2008 which took effect on...

 and Robert G. Kaiser

Robert G. Kaiser

Robert G. Kaiser is associate editor and senior correspondent of The Washington Post, where he has worked since 1963.-Career:Kaiser began at The Washington Post as a summer intern while still a college student. He has served as a special correspondent in London , a reporter on the city desk in...

, The News About the News: American Journalism in Peril

• 2002

Academic: Robert M. Entman and Andrew Rojecki, The Black Image in the White Mind

Trade: Bill Kovach

Bill Kovach

Bill Kovach is a US journalist, former Washington bureau chief of The New York Times, former editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and co-author of the popular book, The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and The Public Should Expect.- Biography :Born in 1932 in East...

 and Tom Rosenstiel

Tom Rosenstiel

Tom Rosenstiel is an author, journalist, press critic and founder and director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism , a research organization that studies the news media and is part of the Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C...

, The Elements of Journalism

• 2001

Lawrence R. Jacobs & Robert Y. Shapiro, Politicians Don't Pander: Political Manipulation and the Loss of Democratic Responsiveness

• 2000

Robert McChesney

Robert W. McChesney

Robert Waterman McChesney is an American professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communication. His work concentrates on the history and political economy of communication, emphasizing the role media play in democratic...

, Rich Media, Poor Democracy

• 1999

James Hamilton, Channeling Violence: The Economic Market for Violent Television Programming

• 1998

Richard Norton Smith

Richard Norton Smith

Richard Norton Smith is an American historian and author specializing in US presidents.-Life:Born in Leominster, Massachusetts, in 1953, Smith graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1975 with a degree in government...

, The Colonel: The Life and Legend of Robert R. McCormick, 1880-1955

• 1997

No award given

• 1996

Stephen Ansolabehere and Shanto Iyengar, Going Negative: How Political Advertisements Shrink and Polarize the Electorate

• 1995

William Hoynes, Public Television for Sale: Media, the Market and the Public Sphere

• 1994

Cass R. Sunstein, Democracy and the Problem of Free Speech

• 1993

Greg Mitchell

Greg Mitchell

Greg Mitchell is the author of twelve books and currently blogs on the media and politics, and of late especially on WikiLeaks, for The Nation...

, Campaign of the Century: Upton Sinclair's Race for Governor of California and the Birth of Media Politics

External links

• http://shorensteincenter.org The Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy's official Web site