Start the Presses, It's Journalism's Trophy Show

Founding NPF president Bob Alden, who labored 48 years at The Post as a sportswriter and editor, said of the award: "It's become one of the celebrated awards -- and we even include broadcasting!"

NPF paid a special tribute to journalists of the Gulf Coast, who kept writing and broadcasting during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, often at great personal risk and sacrifice.

Editor Stan Tiner made sure Biloxi residents received the Sun-Herald throughout the storm: "It was something you would never want to do again but you wouldn't trade anything for it. We hugged each other and cried and put out a newspaper. It's what journalism can do."

Kurt Brautigam, spokesman for Mississippi Power, a subsidiary of event sponsor Southern Co., said, "What they did in providing timely information to residents was incredible. It allowed us to move forward."

During a four-course dinner of pesto-flavored buffalo mozzarella with salad and mizo-glazed tilapia, the awards flowed with the wine. Among them:

· National Geographic Magazine Online, "a terrific site with fascinating content."

· Cartoonist Jimmy Margulies of the Hackensack, N.J., Record. He read an e-mail from a reader: "If I had my way, your hands would be bathed in super glue." These are the times of cartoonists, are they not?

· The Blade's Royhab, receiving the Benjamin C. Bradlee Editor of the Year Award, led the newspaper's investigation that uncovered statewide fiscal mismanagement and a rare-coin investment scheme. "You never get all the truth with the first bite of the apple. It takes a newspaper willing to sustain that effort," he said, paraphrasing Bradlee.

And Bradlee himself: "All things being equal, this is an award I'd rather get than give, but who's looking back?"

Among those awarded the Chairman's Citation for Overall Excellence in Journalism for post-hurricane coverage was the New Orleans Times-Picayune's Jim Amoss, who recounted the publication of the first printed edition after the hurricane struck. "People grabbed for them as if they were food," he said. "Katrina's aftermath consumes most of our pages these days and we don't know its ending."

On the airwaves, Dave Cohen kept WWL-AM radio in New Orleans issuing news and updates for trapped survivors.

Mississippi Press editor Steve Cox kept the presses rolling in Pascagoula, Miss., and, in Beaumont, Tex., Tim Kelly, editor of the Enterprise, got the news out after Hurricane Rita by moving stories and reports directly online before republishing it in the newspaper days later.

The foundation awarded veteran political columnist Jack Germond the W.M. Kiplinger Award for Distinguished Contributions to Journalism, sort of a lifetime-achievement award. Before retiring, Germond covered national politics for more than 50 years for Gannett Newspapers, the Washington Star and the Baltimore Sun.

Speaking poignantly for the profession and for himself, Germond said, "This award is icing on a cake that didn't need any other sweetening."

But the last word went to the poet-newsman Charles Osgood of CBS News, who received the Sol Taishoff Award for Broadcasting Excellence. The anchor of "CBS News Sunday Morning" for more than a decade, he also writes "The Osgood File" -- a popular daily commentary on the CBS Radio Network. "What we do and how we do it does touch lives and makes a difference in those lives," he said. "I can tell you when I take this award home, I will not think of a single thing I have done; I will think of what you all have done and what a noble profession this is."

And he ended with his trademark line: "I'll see you on the radio."

Standing ovation. Gold medalists, all of them.