UCLA’s Jim Newton was recently named the winner of the Carey McWilliams Award, which honors a journalist or organization each year for intellectual forthrightness and political independence.
Newton is the founding editor-in-chief of Blueprint magazine, which is based at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. He’s also a lecturer in the departments of public policy and communications studies.
The McWilliams Award has been given since 1982 by the American Political Science Association in memory of a California lawyer who became an influential political leader, author and editor. McWilliams edited The Nation magazine from 1955 to 1975 and wrote landmark books that focused on migrant farm workers in California and the World War II internment of Japanese Americans.
“I’m deeply honored by this prize and especially by the thought that it binds my name, in some small way, to that of McWilliams, who has long been a personal polestar of integrity and wisdom,” Newton said.
The award was presented Sept. 14 in Montreal at the association’s annual meeting in recognition of Newton’s work at UCLA and other accomplishments. He has written several books about historical figures of political importance with a California connection, including former CIA chief and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren and former Gov. Jerry Brown. At the Los Angeles Times, he was a reporter, editor, columnist, bureau chief, editorial page editor and editor-at-large.
Past recipients of the award include well-known broadcast journalists such as Judy Woodruff and Bill Moyers; other respected newspaper writers such as Seymour Hersh and Molly Ivins; plus authors, professors and chroniclers of political discourse from a diverse array of outlets that includes the New York Times, Washington Post, Cook Political Report, the Congressional Quarterly, National Public Radio and the Huffington Post.
