ProPublica's Sebastian Rotella Wins 2012 Urbino Press Award

Sebastian Rotella from ProPublica, the two times Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalism website, is the recipient of the 7th Annual Urbino Press Award, the Italian journalistic prize awarded each year to an American reporter who distinguished himself for his “ability to describe a world in change.”
Senior Reporter at ProPublica, Rotella worked at the Los Angeles Times for 23 years before joining the investigative journalism online platform in 2012.

Sebastian Rotella

Ambassador Claudio Bisogniero

A recipient of many journalistic awards for investigative reporting, Rotella is the author of the documentary film “A Perfect Terrorist,” aired by PBS in November 2011, which shed a light on the secret services’ blunders that led to the Mumbai terroristic attack in 2008.

“I am honored to receive such a prize, conferred in the past to some of American journalism’s best reporters,” Rotella said yesterday night at the Italian Embassy in Washington, DC, where Ambassador Claudio Bisogniero announced him as the winner of the prize.

Present at the ceremony were the main representatives of the American media, administration and Congress, and over 200 guests.

“I am also happy to share this emotion with my parents, whom arrived in the US during the 1950s.” Rotella’s father, Salvatore Giuseppe Rotella, emigrated to the United States from Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto, Sicily in 1950. “In my house the American dream is not a cliché,” Rotella added.

In his introductory speech, Ambassador Bisogniero stated that: “Tonight’s ceremony is not only intended to celebrate journalistic excellence, it is also an occasion to discuss on the state of information, living a delicate phase of transition characterized by the multiplication of the informational platforms.”

ProPublica embodies all of the positive consequences of the transitional phase that contemporary journalism is living. Led by former Managing Editor of The Wall Street Journal Paul Steiger, the website is a non-profit and independent news source supported by the Sandler Foundation.

In 2010 the website was the first online news organization to win a Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting, followed in 2011 by a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, the first such prize awarded to articles not published in print.  

Rotella will receive the prize in Urbino on June 23, in a ceremony that will be held in the magnificent Ducal Palace of the city.

Giovanni Lani, President of the Urbino Press Award, commented: “Five centuries ago Urbino’s Ducal Palace welcomed intellectuals from all over Europe. We are keeping that tradition alive by inviting great journalists and pundits in the hometown of Raffaello Sanzio and Piero Della Francesca.”

Past winners of the award include Helene Cooper of the New York Times, David Ignatius of the Washington Post, Thomas L. Friedman of the New York Times, Martha Raddatz of ABC news, and Michael Weisskopf of Time magazine.