Journalist Honored At KSG Ceremony

Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner David G. Willman, an investigative journalist for The Los Angeles Times, was awarded the first annual David Nyhan Prize for Political Journalism from the Shorenstein Center at the Kennedy School of Government yesterday.

Willman is best known for his coverage of the way political pressure impacted the approval process for pharmaceuticals within the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Introducing himself as “just one reporter” who relies on “the collaborative talents of [his] colleagues at The Los Angeles Times,” Willman discussed his journalistic creeds before a crowd of about 100.

“Report deeply,” he said. “Be the surrogate eyes and ears for those who lack access to power, remember the little guy [and] let the voiceless be heard.”

The event, held at the Kennedy School’s John F. Kennedy, Jr., Forum, was coupled with the Theodore H. White Lecture on Press and Politics, delivered by Peter Beinart, the editor of The New Republic and author of a forthcoming book on liberalism.

Shorenstein Center Director Alex S. Jones, who won a Pulitzer in 1987, began the evening by speaking about Nyhan, the prize’s sponsor, and his legacy. Jones recalled Nyhan, a Boston Globe columnist, as someone who loved to investigate political power and its abuse, and as someone who could cut directly to the heart of political matters.

Nyhan and White were both Harvard College alumni and long-time political journalists.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy ’54-’56, D-Mass, eulogized Nyhan as “a man of the people, who never forgot his roots.” It was in this tradition, Jones said, that Willman was chosen to be the first recipient of the Nyhan Prize.

Willman, who joined the staff of the L.A. Times in 1990, worked as a reporter for the Times’ Orange County edition before eventually joining the newspaper’s Washington bureau as an investigative reporter.

His first Pulitzer Prize, which he shared with the staff of the L.A. Times, came in 1995 for the newspaper’s immediate “spot coverage” of the 1994 Northride Earthquake, one of the strongest earthquakes ever to have an epicenter in a metropolitan area.

Willman’s most prominent articles, written in December 2000, focused on the FDA’s approval of seven drugs, from 1993 to 2000, that had not been vetted properly by the agency.

After a two-year investigation by Willman and his colleagues, including interviews with over 60 officials at the FDA, Willman went public with the results of his study.

He wrote that political pressure from Congress and the Clinton administration led to expedited approval of the seven drugs, which ultimately cost 1,002 lives.

The investigative pieces further showed how the pressure from political leaders led to the approval of 80 percent of prescription drugs submitted for review from 1993 to 2000—while, in the past, only 60 percent of all drugs had been approved, Willman said.

The articles also excoriated the FDA and pharmaceutical companies for allegedly pocketing more than $5 billion from the seven drugs, which were ultimately pulled from the market.

The series earned Willman the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. He also netted two nominations for the Kennedy School’s Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting—one in 2000 and the other in 2002.