UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A book that examines the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election and the alleged role Fox News played in fueling misinformation and violence, spreading tales of election fraud and suppressing the truth has earned the 2023 Bart Richards Award for Media Criticism.
In “Network of Lies,” author Brian Stelter weaves together private texts, unpublished emails, depositions and other primary sources to tell the story of Donald Trump’s alleged conspiracy to claim the 2020 election, and the mission of some in the media to put him back in office in 2024.
Stelter’s 384-page book published in November 2023 outlines a stress test on American democracy, the rule of law and even the notion of a shared political reality.
The Bart Richards Award will be presented to Stelter on May 16 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
It’s the second time Stelter has earned the award. He was previously honored for his work on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” in 2015. Other individuals and outlets have earned the Bart Richards Award multiple times, but Stelter is the first to be honored for work in separate types of media — broadcast and print.
The Bart Richards Award for Media Criticism, presented annually by the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications at Penn State, is intended to recognize constructively critical articles, books, and electronic and online media reports; academic and other research; and reports by media ombudsmen and journalism watchdog groups.
Faculty screeners from the Bellisario College reviewed entries for the respected national award and forwarded finalists to external judges.
Those judges — Sandy Banisky, a retired professor of journalism at the University of Maryland and a longtime editor, newsroom leader and reporter at the Baltimore Sun; Peter Bhatia, CEO of the nonprofit media outlet Houston Landing and a media veteran with 45 years of experience who has overseen Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism and digital advances at news outlets across the country; and Steve Geimann, a longtime journalist based in Washington, D.C., for Bloomberg News and United Press International — were unanimous in their selection of “Network of Lies.”
The judges cited the book as a “page turner” that deftly distilled a large amount of already known information into an important format.
“The book pulled together this story that was unfolding over months and years,” Banisky said. “He related that entire arc and the way he detailed what happened essentially made it a page turner.”
“Because it’s a book — as opposed to a series of stories in print or online, or even a group of reports on TV — he was able to make it coherent,” Bhatia said. “With books like this you don’t think about almost reading them in one sitting, but this had a quality that made that possible.”
Geimann said, “Even though I knew what was coming, I had to get to the next page and the next chapter. Plus, the book’s power comes with its 'afterword,' which offers details and ways people can hopefully take lessons from the book into some sort of action or change.”
Stelter has authored three best-selling books — “Top of the Morning,” “Hoax” and “Network of Lies.” He was previously a media reporter at The New York Times, anchor of CNN's “Reliable Sources,” and Walter Shorenstein Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. He is currently a special correspondent for Vanity Fair, where he hosts the "Inside the Hive" podcast.
Stelter is a producer on the Apple TV+ series “The Morning Show,” which is inspired by his first book. He also executive produced the HBO documentary “After Truth: Disinformation and the Cost of Fake News.” He lives in New Jersey with his wife and two children.