COLLEGE PARK – The multinational team of journalists that included Professor Dana Priest, the Knight Chair in Public Affairs Journalism at the University of Maryland Philip Merrill College of Journalism, won a prestigious George Polk Award in Technology Reporting for “The Pegasus Project,” Long Island University announced Monday.
Journalists from The Washington Post, the Paris-based Forbidden Stories Network and The Guardian U.S. were recognized for their investigation that found that military-grade Israeli spyware intended for tracking terrorists and criminals was used by authoritarian governments to hack the smartphones of journalists, activists and business executives around the world.
Priest, a Washington Post investigative reporter, has now won two Pulitzer Prizes, three Polk Awards and a Peabody Award.
“It was a unique honor to join journalists from 15 countries, all helping one another to uncover and then explain the truly global nature of this unregulated spyware and its negative consequences on democratic forces and individuals in these countries,” Priest said.
Over the course of a year, the consortium linked thousands of phone numbers to individuals and, in dozens of cases, convinced victims to allow Amnesty International, the consortium’s forensic analysts, to test their phones. New revelations involving still more countries continue to roll out after the series was published. Governments in Europe and Mexico have launched their own investigations. The Biden Administration halted trade between the country, the Israeli-based NSO Group and U.S. companies.
“Professor Priest had a highly productive, wildly important sabbatical last year,” Merrill College Dean Lucy Dalglish said. “This investigation was a true accomplishment. Our students are so lucky to have the opportunity to learn from one of the world’s most distinguished journalists.”
The George Polk Awards are among the nation’s top journalism honors. They were established in 1949 to commemorate George Polk, a CBS correspondent murdered in 1948 while covering the Greek civil war. The awards focus on difference-making investigative and enterprising reporting.
“Not only did we receive a record number of submissions but they came from far more sources of investigative reporting than ever before, and dozens in addition to the award winners represented first-class work,” John Darnton, curator of the awards, said in a release. “This speaks to the vitality and continued promise of a changing journalism landscape and is reason to feel optimistic about the future of our craft.”
Priest joined the Merrill College faculty in 2014. She teaches courses in censorship and disinformation, and national security reporting. She also co-founded the student organization Press Uncuffed, which promoted the investigation and advocacy of free press issues around the world.
A two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and three-time finalist, Priest has spent the majority of her journalism career focusing on national security, military operations and the U.S. intelligence agencies. She uncovered secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe and deplorable conditions for veterans at the Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington. She also won a 2018 Peabody Award and 2020 duPont-Columbia Award for the film, “The Facebook Dilemma.”
For more information, contact:
Josh Land
joshland@umd.edu
301-405-1321