Hurricane Journalists Honored

Political columnist Jack Germond, Charles Osgood of CBS News and the Ohio editor whose paper broke the state's "coingate" scandal are among the winners of this year's National Press Foundation awards.

Ron Royhab, executive editor of The (Toledo) Blade, will receive the Benjamin C. Bradlee Editor of the Year Award. Royhab oversaw a series of stories that showed gross mismanagement of a $50 million investment by the state into rare coins.

As a special tribute, the Chairman's Citation for Overall Excellence in Journalism was given to the journalists who covered hurricanes Rita and Katrina.

Germond, who is retired from The (Baltimore) Sun, has covered national politics for more than 50 years. He received the W.M. Kiplinger Award for Distinguished Contributions to Journalism. Osgood received the Sol Taishoff Award for Broadcasting Excellence to honor his work in radio and television.

Other winners include Ed Henry of CNN and Susan Milligan of The Boston Globe, who were honored with the Everett McKinley Dirksen Awards for Distinguished Coverage of Congress. Jimmy Margulies of The (Hackensack, N.J.) Record has been named cartoonist of the year. The award for online journalism was given to National Geographic Magazine Online.

The editor award was named this year to honor Bradlee, the former executive editor of The Washington Post, who oversaw the paper's coverage of the Watergate scandal.

The awards will be presented Feb. 23 at a black-tie fund-raising dinner for the National Press Foundation in Washington.