CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, currently the host of The Situation Room and its lead political anchor, is the 2013 winner of the Urbino Press Award as announced by the Italian Ambassador Claudio Bisogniero, at a reception held at the Italian Embassy on April 18, 2013. The prize, now at its sixth edition, is awarded in recognition of excellence in journalism to American
reporters who, through their commitment and daily work, conscientiously inform millions of people.
The Urbino Press Award “recognizes excellence in journalism, in searching for news, in writing stories, in analyzing facts and turning information in freedom and progress,” as stated by former Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi who also underlined how “media, both traditional and new ones, can influence today’s decision-making in foreign policy”.
In announcing the winner, Ambassador Bisogniero noted that, ”Per tutti noi Wolf Blitzer rappresenta un marchio di qualita’ del giornalismo. ‘Wolf ha saputo costruire una sua forte immagine professionale nel corso di una straordinaria carriera.” In accepting the award, Blitzer said that he was accepting it in the name of all his colleagues at CNN.
The City of Urbino, which during the Renaissance gave life to one of the most enlightened courts of Europe, symbolically reinstates its court, once enriched by geniuses like Baldassarre Castiglione and Torquato Tasso, with the voice and experience of todays’ reporters, the outstanding interpreters of the events that are changing our world.
The award will be officially presented to Blitzer on June 20 in the Ducal Palace of the City of Urbino. Giovanni Lani, President of the Urbino Press Award, who has managed to bring to Urbino, Italy, the best of the best of American journalism, was very satisfied by the large crowd who joined in the evening’s ceremony and was already thinking about how he could top this year’s honoree.
Prior winners of the Urbino Press Award include, Sebastiano Rotella of Pro Publica, Helene Cooper of the New York Times, David Ignatius of the Washington Post, Thomas L. Friedman of the New York Times, Martha Raddatz of ABC news, and Michael Weisskopf of Time magazine.