2023 Award Winners
Top Prize: Max Blumenthal
Almost all reports on the current U.S. backed Israeli war in Gaza come to us heavily laced with misinformation and lies. That is why the work of Max Blumenthal, who has the benefit of in-depth reporting on Israel and Gaza in previous wars, in The Grayzone has been not only invaluable but also indispensable. Most importantly, in rigorously sourced reports such as "October 7 testimonies reveal Israel's military 'shelling' Israeli citizens" as well as "Israeli October 7 poster child was killed by Israeli tank, eyewitnesses reveal." He has brought to light truths otherwise assiduously ignored in the mainstream media. HIs work has been significant enough to elicit a tribute in the form of a shoddily crafted smear job in the Washington Post.
We proudly acknowledge the importance of Blumentahl's work with the Pierre Spray Journalism Award.
Runner Up Awardee: Gareth Porter
Runner-up awardee Gareth Porter, like the award's namesake, is a lover of jazz, journalistic integrity, and the courageous search for truth. Porter, an independent journalist and historian, is one of the last of the Viet Nam generation of truth-seeking investigative journalists. Since the 1960s, Porter has demonstrated the courage to stand alone and go where his research takes him — with the integrity to acknowledge and rectify his rare errors. Over a career spanning 60 years, Porter has compiled a huge corpus of original reporting and analysis that includes a major reinterpretation of the roots of the American Vietnam War and a critical analysis of the Iranian nuclear scare. Over the last 15 years, Porter’s investigative focus has been on US meddling in the interconnected conflicts in the Middle East, see for example, his corpus of reports in the late Robert Parry’s award-winning Consortium News, most recently Israel’s brutal bombing of Gaza, particularly Israel’s controversial propaganda justifying its “precision targeting” of Gaza’s flagship al Shifa hospital, among others. As of 22 January, the UN reported only 16 of 36 hospitals were partially functional. The UN also reported that over 25,000 Gazans had been killed, 63,000 wounded, 1.7 million had been internally displaced, and that 2.2 out of a total population of 2.3 million were on the cusp of dehydration and a potentially catastrophic disease-ridden famine.
Runner Up Awardee: Dave DeCamp
Runner-up awardee Dave DeCamp is the News Editor at Antiwar.com. As the internet reporter of record for day-to-day information about what has become an unending series of American-sponsored aggressions, provocations, and furtherance of others’ belligerence, DeCamp delivers a comprehensive and essential corrective to the tsunami of slanted misinformation that appears each day in our country’s mainstream media. His succinct reports come shorn of the filters that are embedded in customary “news.” When the NY Times preaches Israel’s behavior in and over Gaza as based on a “right to self-defense,” DeCamp accurately calls it a “massacre.” No less importantly he gives us multiple, straightforward reports on international events and their implication across the board, affording a much more complete and accurate picture of what is happening and why.