Awards and recognition
National Awards
2024 Silver Gavel Award, commentary
See the winning work here: “Alabama’s Desperate Bid for a Milligan Do-over”
2023 Pulitzer Prize, commentary
"For measured and persuasive columns that document how Alabama's Confederate heritage still colors the present with racism and exclusion, told through tours of its first capital, its mansions and monuments–and through the history that has been omitted."
See the winning work here: "State of Denial"
2023 NLA Mike Royko Award, commentary
From the judges: "Whitmire’s engaging approach of serving as a reader’s tour guide pulls a reader through Alabama’s dark, racist history that still pokes through civic life. He doesn’t use in-your-face prose. Instead, he brings readers along while writing about how white lawmakers in 1901 subverted the rights of Black citizens. His compelling writing makes plain that this is not merely Alabama’s history; it is also its present, as political forces try to erase or whitewash what truly happened – and what is still tolerated."
2021 MOLLY Award, political commentary
2021 National Headliner Awards, Second Place, local column writing.
2020 Sigma Delta Chi Award, general column writing, daily circulation 1-100,000.
2019 Scripps Howard Awards, Walker Stone Award for opinion writing.
Judges' comments: "His columns – a mix of good storytelling and fearless opinion – prick the soft underbelly of the Jim Crow, Jr. South. Whitmire is the linear successor of Eugene Patterson and Ida B. Wells, a fact that bodes well for Alabama and the journalism profession."
2019 Phillip D. Reed Environmental Writing Award (with John Archibald).
The case led to the conviction of a Drummond Company vice president and a member of one of Alabama’s most prominent law firms, Balch & Bingham, on charges related to bribing the state legislator. The reporters point out, however, that the tentacles of the conspiracy extend to many other corporate executives, high-level government officials and community leaders, and that the trial laid bare a “shadow government” in Alabama “run by the elites at the expense of the powerless.”
2018 INMA, Best Use of Video (Team).
2015 IRE, Investigations Triggered by Breaking News, finalist (Team).
Regional Awards
2023 Green Eyeshade Awards, Second Place, Serious Commentary/All Dailies.
2022 Green Eyeshade Awards, First Place, Political Reporting/All Dailies.
2022 Green Eyeshade Awards, Second Place, Serious Commentary/All Dailies.
2021 Green Eyeshade Awards, Second Place, Serious Commentary/All Dailies.
2020 Green Eyeshade Awards, First Place, Serious Commentary/All Dailies.
2019 Green Eyeshade Awards, Second Place, Serious Commentary/All Dailies.
2018 Green Eyeshade Awards, First Place, Serious Commentary/All Dailies.
2018 Southeast Regional Emmy, Best Public/Current/Community Affairs.
Learn more about my work: State of Denial
