Editor Behind Romney '47 Percent' Video Honored With Polk Journalism Award

David Corn, who broke one of the biggest stories of the presidential election, was announced alongside CBS News' Holly Williams and Frontline's Martin Smith as a George Polk Award in Journalism honoree. 

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This past September, a video obtained by Corn, the D.C. bureau chief of Mother Jones magazine, revealed Mitt Romney speaking frankly to rich donors at a fundraiser -- yielding the candidate's line that "there are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what."

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The video, as well as a series of follow-up articles about the fundraiser, put the Romney campaign on the defensive and served as ammunition for Democrats throughout the election cycle. 

"For David and all of us at Mother Jones, it's a capstone for an amazing year and thrilling recognition for a project that has been widely credited with changing the course of the campaign," wrote the editors of the magazine, Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery, after the Polk announcement.

Other George Polk award honorees included CBS News' Holly Williams and Andrew Portch for television news reporting on Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng. For documentary television reporting, Martin Smith and producer Michael Kirk were honored for the four-part series "Money, Power and Wall Street."

The business reporting award went to the New York Times' David Barstow and reporter Alejandra Xanic von Bertrab for an investigation into Walmart's dealings in Mexico. 

The magazine reporting honor went to Sarah Stillman of The New Yorker for the feature "The Throwaways."

War reporting honors went to McClatchy newspaper services for its "Inside Syria" series. One of the newspaper's correspondents, Austin Tice, went missing in the country. Corn mentioned Tice in comments made on Twitter after the awards announcement. "Especially honored to be a #Polk recipient with @austin_tice, who still is being held in Syria -- a reporter with true guts," Corn wrote.

The annual awards, named for CBS correspondent George W. Polk, will hold an event honoring the recipients at The Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan on April 11. 

A complete list of Polk honorees can be found here.