The Sperber Prize is given in honor of the late Ann M. Sperber, the author of Murrow: His Life and Times, the critically acclaimed biography of journalist Edward R. Murrow. One edition of that work was published by Fordham University Press, connecting the Sperber family to the University. Through the generous support of Ann’s mother, Lisette, the $1,000 award was established to promote and encourage biographies and memoirs that focus on a professional in journalism. The award has been presented annually by Fordham’s Department of Communication and Media Studies since 1999. 

Associate Professor of Communication and Media Studies Beth Knobel, Ph.D., director of the Sperber Prize, said that nearly 60 books with 2021 copyrights were considered for the award. 

“This year, there were so many wonderful biographies and memoirs that we found it difficult to pick the finalists,” said Knobel. “The seven members of the jury found a great many of the books nominated to be well-written, well-researched, and absolutely fascinating.”  

Here are the six finalists:

• Elizabeth Becker’s You Don’t Belong Here: How Three Women Rewrote the Story of War, published by Public Affairs. This work tells the long-buried story of three extraordinary female journalists who permanently shattered the barriers to women covering war.  Becker, an award-winning author and journalist, has covered national and international affairs as a Washington correspondent at The New York Times, a senior foreign editor at National Public Radio, and a correspondent at The Washington Post. 
• Marvin Kalb’s Assignment Russia: Becoming a Foreign Correspondent in the Crucible of the Cold War, published by Brookings. This book, Kalb’s second memoir of his years living in the Soviet Union, presents a personal journey through some of the darkest moments of the Cold War and the early days of television news. Kalb’s distinguished journalism career spans more than 30 years and includes award-winning reporting for both CBS and NBC News as chief diplomatic correspondent, Moscow bureau chief, and anchor of NBC’s Meet the Press. He is professor emeritus at Harvard University and hosts The Kalb Report at the National Press Club.
• Melanie Kirkpatrick’s Lady Editor: Sarah Josepha Hale and the Making of the Modern American Woman, published by Encounter Books. For half a century, Sarah Josepha Hale was the most influential woman in America. As editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, Hale was the leading cultural arbiter for the growing nation, a powerful advocate for educational and professional opportunities for women, and the godmother of our national Thanksgiving Day. Melanie Kirkpatrick is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. She spent 30 years at The Wall Street Journal, where she began as a copy editor on the overnight desk in Hong Kong and rose to become op-ed editor, editorial writer, and deputy editor of The Wall Street Journal editorial page.
• Judith Mackrell’s The Correspondents: Six Women Writers on the Front Lines of World War II, published by Doubleday. The Correspondents presents the untold history of a group of heroic women reporters who revolutionized the narrative of World War II—from Martha Gellhorn, who out-scooped her husband, Ernest Hemingway, to Lee Miller, a Vogue cover model turned war correspondent. Mackrell is the critically acclaimed author of The Unfinished Palazzo and Flappers. She is also a celebrated dance critic, and her biography of the ballerina Lydia Lopokova, Bloomsbury Ballerina, was short-listed for the Costa Biography Award.
• Lisa Napoli’s Susan, Linda, Nina and Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR, published by Abrams. This group biography profiles four beloved women who fought sexism, covered decades of American news, and whose voices defined National Public Radio. Napoli has had a long career in print, radio, TV, and online journalism. She has worked at The New York Times, Marketplace, MSNBC, and KCRW. She is the author of three previous books, Radio Shangri-La, Ray & Joan, and Up All Night: Ted Turner, CNN, and the Birth of 24-Hour News.
• Donald A. Ritchie’s The Columnist: Leaks, Lies, and Libel in Drew Pearson’s Washington, published by Oxford University Press. In the “Washington Merry-Go-Round,” a nationally syndicated newspaper column that appeared in hundreds of papers from 1932 to 1969, as well as on weekly radio and television programs, the investigative journalist Drew Pearson revealed news that public officials tried to suppress. The Columnist examines how Pearson managed to uncover secrets so successfully and why government efforts to find his sources proved so unsuccessful. Ritchie, the author or editor of more than one dozen books, is the Historian Emeritus of the U.S. Senate.

Previous winners of the Sperber Prize include Working by Robert Caro, Fire Shut Up in My Bones by Charles M. Blow, Cronkite by Douglas Brinkley, Lives of Margaret Fuller by John Matteson, Reporter by Seymour M. Hersh, The Publisher: Henry Luce and His American Century by Alan Brinkley, Avid Reader: A Life by Robert Gottlieb, and All Governments Lie! The Life and Times of Rebel Journalist I.F. Stone by Myra MacPherson. In 2021, the Sperber Prize was awarded to two biographies, Kerri K. Greenidge’s biography Black Radical: The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter and Lesley M. M. Blume’s FALLOUT: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World about war correspondent John Hersey.  

The winner of the 2022 Sperber Prize will be announced in September and awarded in November at a ceremony held at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus.

More information about the award, its jury, and its history can be found at Sperberprize.com. If you have any questions, please contact Beth Knobel at [email protected] or 718-817-5041.

The award, which was presented in a ceremony at the Lincoln Center campus, was given for Gottlieb’s memoir, Avid Reader: A Life (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016). It was accepted by Gottlieb’s wife, Maria Tucci. During his considerable career, Gottlieb served as editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster, Alfred A. Knopf, and The New Yorker. Considered one of the greatest editors of the mid-to-late 20th century, he worked with the era’s leading authors—John Cheever, Salman Rushdie, Doris Lessing, Toni Morrison, Janet Malcolm, and Robert Caro, to name a few.

Jonathan Crystal, Ph.D., Fordham’s associate vice president and associate chief academic officer, called it an especially relevant tome to be honored amidst a crowd of book lovers.

“I think in the academic world, you’ll find many of us who identify completely with Robert Gottlieb when he writes ‘From the start, words were more real to me than real life, and certainly more interesting,’” he said.

“It was fascinating for me to see how editors work with authors to, as he put it, ‘Edge a book closer to its platonic self.’ I felt like I was peeking behind a curtain and getting a glimpse of this mysterious process.”

Patricia Bosworth, a contributing editor for Vanity Fair and a member of the Sperber Prize jury, hailed Avid Reader as a “buoyant memoir of a remarkable career,” and spoke fondly of her experience working with Gottleib on Diane Arbus: A Biography (Knopf, 1984).

She recalled that although she had earned the trust of Arbus’ brother Howard Nermorov, Arbus’ estate refused to work with her or let her reproduce the late artist’s photography.

[Gottleib] said, ‘It doesn’t matter. You’re going to write about the photographs, describe them, find out how she took the pictures. Photographs will not matter,’” she said.

“Once he said that to me, it gave me confidence. I was really worried about it before.”

He taught her that work is more fun than fun, she said.

“Digging deep into something can be one of the most exciting things a writer and editors can do—discovering collecting, shaping. Bob said in his book, that ‘Work is my natural state of being.’ That’s what I learned from him, so I’m forever grateful,” she said.

In remarks delivered on his behalf by Tucci, Gottleib joked that he assumed that, having edited biographies of George Balanchine, Charles Dickens, and Sarah Bernhardt, tackling a book about himself would earn him ridicule for engaging in an “act of nervy self-indulgence.” He said he was thrilled that the prize was being given for a book that is really about books.

“I don’t know which is more gratifying: helping a writer make his or her book even better than it already is, or watching your enthusiasm for a writer or a book spread out into the world at large. And they’ve been paying me to do these things for 62 years now!” he said.

“I’ve always believed that editors should do their work invisibly, without attention being called to them. And yet I can’t pretend I’m indifferent to seeing our work honored, so I’m happy to accept this tribute not in my name only, but in the name of my whole club.”

The Sperber Prize was established by Liselotte Sperber to honor the memory of her daughter Ann, who wrote the definitive biography of Edward R. Murrow, Murrow: His Life and Times (Freundlich, 1986). It is administered by Fordham’s Department of Communication and Media Studies.

“Anytime someone belched in the city of Chicago they sent someone to cover the belch,” Robert Miraldi, Ph.D., said, referring to investigative journalist Seymour Hersh’s first beat as a reporter for the city’s news bureau.

Miralidi, author of Seymour Hersh: Scoop Artist (Potomac Books, 2013), made the remarks to communications students who attended a ceremony at which he received Fordham’s 2014 Ann M. Sperber Award. His anecdote spoke of an old-school gumshoe reporting style that every cub reporter had to master before moving on to bigger stories.

It also hinted at the colorful language newsrooms were once known for—and that the 77-year-old Hersh was famous for.

Miraldi, a professor of journalism at the State University of New York’s College at New Paltz, said that when he called the legendary journalist to reveal his plans to write the biography, Hersh replied, “I’m not [expletive]dead you know.”

Emerging over the course of the event as a man cut from a similar cloth as his subject, a detail oriented reporter. Miraldi told tales about the sometimes-bellicose Hersh, and in casual aside cited two sources for one particular tale.

He told the story of one U.S. senator who refused to take Hersh’s call. Hersh then told the senator’s secretary to tell the senator that, unless he wanted the affair he was having with a his mistress on the front page of the next day’s paper, he had better pick up. Then, after a beat, Hersh said, “Helloooo, Senator.”

The Sperber prize, presented by the Department of Communication and Media Studies, is given to biographical works that focus on media professionals. It is named in honor of Ann M. Sperber, author of Edward R. Murrow, Murrow: His Life and Times, (Fordham University Press, 1999) and was established with a gift from Sperber’s mother, Lisette.

“To have Fordham as the home for this prize is a great feather in our cap,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham. “This is a great book about a great person that shines light on someone of great professionalism.”

While some have questioned Hersh’s methods for getting a story, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist John Darton said that Hersh’s “highly developed moral standard” propels him to anger when institutions abuse power.

“If Woodward and Bernstein were Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, then Sy Hersh is Jesse James,” said Darton. “His motto was ‘travel light and ride alone.’”

Hersh began his career in the early 1960s. Miraldi bookends the biography with Hersh’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1969 freelance coverage of the My Lai Massacre for Dispatch News Service and his 2004 reporting for The New Yorker on the U.S. military’s mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

The My Lai story, which reported that the U.S. military had killed hundreds of South Vietnamese civilians, mostly women and children, helped turn public opinion against the war.

To get the story, Hersh posed as a lawyer to find U.S. army officer William L. Calley at Fort Benning, who was awaiting court marshal for the murders. With more than 100,000 military on the base, finding Calley proved a herculean task. But Miraldi said that the real challenge for Hersh was getting Calley to talk—which he did through a combination of Hersh’s charm, a steak dinner, and bourbon. A drunken Calley told all and Miraldi said Hersh banged out the copy through tears.

Miraldi said that now, more than ever, journalism students should follow Hersh’s unorthodox lead and “uncover the dark deeds” and injustices.

“Sy Hersh can be a difficult man. But this is a man who for 40 years has been fighting injustice. This is a man who for 40 years has been angry. This is a man who for 40 years has been indignant.”

“He once said ‘Do you know what I expect from my country? I expect the same thing that I expect from my family. I expect honesty.’”

At a Nov. 25 ceremony at the Lincoln Center campus that, by coincidence, fell on the anniversary of Kennedy’s funeral, Douglas Brinkley, Ph.D., was presented with the 2013 Ann M. Sperber Prize.

Brinkley, a professor of history at Rice University, was lauded for the 864-page-longCronkite (Harper Collins, 2012), which delves into the life and career of the CBS newsman dubbed “the most trusted man in America.”

Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, presented the award to Brinkley and invoked the saying, “God created man because he loves stories.”

“If that’s the case, God needs help retelling the stories and bringing them to life,” he said. “Because it is by the retelling of stories, never heard or forgotten, that the delight of God is found in our midst.”
Father McShane was joined in his praise by Sanford Socolow.

Socolow was the executive producer of The CBS Evening News from 1949 to 2000, which Cronkite anchored from 1962 to 1981. A member of the Sperber prize jury, Socolow recused himself from voting this year, as he is cited in the book.

He said that he learned “new details” about Cronkite’s circle, thanks to the stunning depth of Brinkley’s research. Brinkley’s book calls Cronkite’s critical role in breaking the JFK story reveals a “watershed” moment for Cronkite, establishing the newscaster’s reputation.

“Nobody recalls anything about the funeral or the assassination, or the murder of the assassin, without reference to Cronkite,” Socolow said. “Reading the chapter is as exciting as watching the events on television. [Brinkley] has really brought some life into the written word.”

Brinkley, who has written previously about Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, and Rosa Parks, said that when it comes to people like Cronkite, it’s worth the work it takes to track down ancillary figures in their lives.

“In the golden age of tv news—before cable news and the Internet—Cronkite was the commanding person of that era,” he said.

Brinkley said he wanted to write about Cronkite because, as a historian, he experienced events such as the moon landing, Watergate, and the end of the Vietnam War through television coverage.

Cronkite’s insistence that all facts be triple-checked, Brinkley said, was what gave him his gravitas.

“‘It’s my face hanging,’ he used to say. He could be tough. This was not just avuncular Uncle Walt,” Brinkley said.

Amazingly, Brinkley said, he couldn’t anyone in broadcasting who got tired of Walter Cronkite. Even when Cronkite retired, nobody said it was about time he hung it up.

He credited this to Cronkite’s unique way of speaking, which helped him “wear well” when he was invited into American’s livingrooms day in and day out.

“There are only so many voices that you miss. It was a cadence and a pacing that was just remarkable,” he said.

The Sperber award is given annually to an author of a biography or autobiography of a journalist or other media figure. The award was established by a gift from Liselotte Sperber, in memory of her daughter Ann M. Sperber, who wrote the Pulitzer Prize-nominated biography of Edward R. Murrow, Murrow: His Life and Times (Fordham University Press, 1998).

American Radical: The Life and Times of I.F. Stone (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2009), by D.D. Guttenplan, became the second book on the foremost 20th century investigative journalist to receive the Sperber award, which annually recognizes a biography or autobiography of a journalist or other media figure.

“Herman Melville said that to produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme,” said Robin Andersen, Ph.D., professor of communication and the night’s emcee. “I can think of no mightier figure than I.F. Stone.”

“The book we celebrate today is about 20th century U.S. history, 20th century journalism, and more particularly and spectacularly, about the American left and its decades of dissent,” said David Nasaw, Ph.D., Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. Chair in American History at the City University of New York Graduate Center, a former Sperber Prize winner and member of the judging committee. “For me as a U.S. historian, the greatest virtue is that it is a history of an era we thought we knew, but clearly did not.”

The son of a dry goods store merchant, Stone grew up with a taste for radical politics and muckraking journalism. He worked for newspapers through the Great Depression, the rise of Hitler, the World and Korean Wars, and the McCarthy era, when he was blacklisted in 1952. In 1953, he started self-publishingI.F. Stone’s Weekly, and by the mid-sixties it had established itself as a firm voice against the Vietnam War.

Guttenplan said that he fell into writing the biography quite unexpectedly when, as a Newsdayreporter, he asked to write a piece about Stone’s death in 1989. Shortly after it appeared, Guttenplan received a call from a literary agent who represented Stone’s estate.

During the 18 years that Guttenplan worked on the biography, he said he felt compelled to tell not just the story of a controversial figure, but also the shaping of the 20th century in America over the course of Stone’s life.

“If you read the press now, you get the idea that the New Deal was a failure,” said Guttenplan. “That is the dominant idea in American journalism, that it wasted a lot of money.

“I wanted to put together a narrative to make sure people didn’t forget,” he said. “Not just what had happened, but what had been achieved and what remains possible.”

As a Pulitzer Prize nominated journalist himself, Guttenplan suggested it was wrong to look at I.F. Stone the journalist and think that he changed the world.

“At best, we can provide cover and fire for other people to change the world,” said Guttenplan. “But we can also keep people from fooling themselves, we can wake them up. I think Stone did a terrific job of waking people up.”

The Sperber award was established in 1999 with a gift from Liselotte Sperber, in memory of her daughter Ann M. Sperber, who wrote the Pulitzer Prize nominated biography of Edward R. Murrow, Murrow: His Life and Times (Fordham University Press, 1998).

Author Todd DePastino (right) speaks with Ron Jacobson, Ph.D., associate vice president for academic affairs and executive director of academic programs at Fordham Westchester, before the Sperber Prize ceremony on Nov. 23 at the Lowenstein Center.

DePastino received the Ann M. Sperber Prize for biography for his book, Bill Mauldin: A Life Up Front(W.W. Norton, 2008). The prize is given by Fordham to an author of a biography or autobiography of a journalist or other media figure.