Entry Deadline: February 22, 2021

The 2021 Walter Cronkite Awards for Excellence in TV Political Journalism will honor outstanding local and national coverage of the pandemic, systemic racism and the integrity of the 2020 elections – journalism that debunks disinformation, promotes public health, advocates science, exposes inequities, empowers citizens and serves as a watchdog for voting rights and election fairness, transparency, accuracy and security.

The biennial Cronkite award for political journalism is administered by the Norman Lear Center at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

USC Annenberg has partnered with the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania to present the Brooks Jackson Prize for Fact-Checking Political Messages. The prize is named for the founding director of FactCheck.org. The 2021 Jackson Prize will honor exemplary fact-checking and correcting of COVID-19 misinformation and conspiracy theories.
Entry guidelines and the selection process have changed to reflect this extraordinary election cycle.
Read about the new guidelines.
Entry Guidelines
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The Brooks Jackson Prize is administered by

Every weeknight for 19 years, up to 30 million Americans watched Walter Cronkite anchor the CBS Evening News. A poll named him “the most trusted man in America.” When he went to Vietnam in 1968 to see if the U.S. government was telling the truth about winning the war, his answer – no – was an inflection point in the war, in politics and in the job of journalism. Explaining why he gave his name in 2000 to this award, he said, “We’re not intelligent enough, we’re not educated well enough, to perform the necessary act of electing our leaders. We’ve got to improve that situation, and it’s going to be, to a large degree, up to us in television and radio, in broadcasting, to get that job done. If we fail at that, our democracy, our Republic, is, I think, in serious danger.”

The Cronkite Awards Turn 20

Celebrating two decades of honoring the best in television political journalism

2001 - 2021
The Walter Cronkite Awards is administered by the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center; the Brooks Jackson Prize is administered by the Annenberg Public Policy Center.