From the Editor
We don't make a habit of crowing about the awards we win, but some are more special than others. This week we found out that Ken Walsh, our chief White House correspondent, will become the first two-time winner of the Aldo Beckman Memorial Award. Presented at the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner in Washington on April 21, it's the highest honor given by a very tough peer group. Making sense of any White House, and this one in particular, is a formidable task. Ken's done it with unerring energy, focus, and fairness since 1986 (he first won the Beckman in 1991). He masters the material whether he's writing daily news breaks for our website, analytical takeouts for the magazine, or as a presidential historian and author of four books including, most recently, From Mount Vernon to Crawford: A History of the Presidents and Their Retreats (2005). The judges were impressed with Ken's "deeply reported pieces that provided fresh framing and enormous historical perspective. In a critical year, he got beyond pack journalism and spin to give a nuanced understanding of the Bush presidency." And he does it every week.
This story appears in the April 16, 2007 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.