Craig Whitlock, a Duke alumnus who works as an investigative reporter for The Washington Post, is this year’s winner of the Futrell Award for Outstanding Achievement in Communications and Journalism.
The award is presented annually by the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media & Democracy to a Duke alum who has excelled in media and communications.
Currently a staff writer assigned to the Post’s investigative team, Whitlock has been a reporter for the paper since 1998. He has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize on three occasions, and was awarded the German Marshall Fund’s Peter R. Weitz Prize for his coverage of international terrorist networks in Europe.
While reporting for the Post’s National Desk from 2010 to 2016, Whitlock was recognized for his work on a three-part series called “The Permanent War.” This series examined the United States’ drone campaign and U.S. counterterrorism policies and how they evolved during the Obama administration.
Before that, Whitlock spent nearly six years in Europe as the paper’s Berlin bureau chief. While overseas, he did investigative reporting on terrorism networks and counterterrorism policy in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. During his time at the Post he has reported from more than 60 countries.
He’s also been recognized for his state and local coverage. During his first job with the Post covering the statehouse in Annapolis and the Prince George’s County police department in Maryland, Whitlock earned a Pulitzer nomination for his work investigating systematic abuses in the police department.
Prior to joining the Post, Whitlock spent seven years working as a reporter for The Raleigh News & Observer after a brief stint as a staff writer for The Anniston Star in Alabama.
While at Duke, Whitlock served as the editor-in-chief of The Chronicle in 1989 before graduating with a bachelor’s degree in history in 1990.
He was born in Ithaca, N.Y. and raised in Kennett Square, Pa., and now lives in Silver Spring, Md. with his wife, author Jennifer Toth, and son Kyle.
Whitlock will receive the Futrell Award at an April 6 dinner at Duke. He will be the 17th recipient of the award. Alumnus Ashley B. Futrell Jr., a 1978 graduate, established the award to honor the journalism career of his father, Ashley B. Futrell Sr., class of 1933. Both Futrells had served as editor and publisher of the Washington Daily News, a Pulitzer Prize-winning local newspaper in eastern North Carolina the family operated for six decades until its sale in 2010.