Awards & Conferences

Author, journalist and human rights activist Jamie Kalven is winner of the 2022 I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence. Kalven founded the Invisible Institute, a nonprofit journalism production company on the South Side of Chicago and for years, he has documented police abuse, fought for access to vital public records, told the stories of the underserved and much more.

Announcing the award, I.F. Stone Medal jury chair Ricardo Sandoval-Palos said: “For decades, Jamie Kalven has practiced journalism in the tradition established by his role model, I.F. Stone. And like a steady drumbeat, Jamie has produced stories that have held government and police accountable. Our jury was unanimous in voting this year’s medal to Jamie in recognition of the impact of his work and the infrastructure he’s established for up-and-coming independent investigative journalists.”

Read the press release

Established in 2008, the I.F. Stone Medal recognizes journalistic independence and honors the life of investigative journalist I.F. Stone.

The award is presented annually to an American journalist or news executive whose work exemplifies the independent spirit, integrity, courage and indefatigability that characterized I.F. Stone’s Weekly published from 1953 to 1971.

A committee of journalists oversees nominations and the selection of an annual medal winner. The committee is chaired by PBS public editor Ricardo Sandoval-Palos. Other members are Jasmine Brown, a senior producer in the race and culture unit at ABC News’ “World News Tonight with David Muir”; Myra MacPherson, author of “All Governments Lie: The Life and Times of Rebel Journalist I.F. Stone”; Phillip W.d. Martin, a senior investigative reporter for WGBH News; Michael Riley, an investigative reporter for Bloomberg News and Businessweek magazine; and Bernice Yeung, a ProPublica reporter who focuses on labor and employment.

Journalist I.F. Stone’s passion for speaking his mind incurred the wrath of the powerful. His opposition to Sen. Joseph McCarthy and his determination to expose the excesses of J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI led to attacks on his credibility and reputation during the McCarthy Era in the early 1950s.

The I.F. Stone Medal bears a likeness of an issue of I.F. Stone’s Weekly with a headline on the Tonkin Gulf affair, ‘All We Really Know Is That We Fired The First Shots.’ (PDF)

Stone was one of only a few journalists who reported on the U.S. government’s false allegations that the North Vietnamese had attacked a U.S. destroyer in 1964, the claim President Johnson used to persuade the Senate to approve the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which ultimately paved the way for the country to enter the Vietnam War.