Noelle Wiehe

Military Veterans in Journalism announces the awardees from the 2024 submissions

Military Veterans in Journalism (MVJ) is pleased to announce the 2024 Top 10 Veterans in Journalism award winners. Established in 2021, the annual Top 10 Veterans competition acknowledges and celebrates the outstanding contributions of veterans who are excelling in the news media. The awardees are selected by a panel of experienced journalists and editors from a pool of nominees, and their work represents a variety of mediums and topics across the news industry.

A committee of experienced industry professionals – including Barbara Starr, former CNN Pentagon correspondent and current Senior Fellow at USC Annenberg’s Center on Communication Leadership and Policy and Tawnell Hobbs, an Air Force and Texas Air National Guard veteran as well a current senior special writer on the investigations team at The Wall Street Journal – evaluated this year’s nominated journalists and their pieces. Each nomination was carefully assessed based on originality, newsworthiness and impact, journalistic quality, and the diversity of subject matters, sources and authors.

The Top 10 awardees are recognized for their achievements in shaping the media landscape with their insightful reporting and profound storytelling. This year’s winners have displayed exceptional skill, compassion, and a relentless commitment to shedding light on important issues. The work they have produced shows their unwavering dedication to their profession and the pursuit of truth. 

This year’s Top 10 Military Veterans in Journalism are listed below in alphabetical order.

Davis Winkie

Davis Winkie served as the senior Army reporter for Military times and has served his community as a Force Support Officer in the Georgia Air National since December 2022. He served five years as a human resources officer in the North Carolina Army National Guard. Davis studied history at Vanderbilt and UNC-Chapel Hill. His investigations earned the Society of Professional Journalists’ 2023 Sunshine Award and consecutive Military Reporters and Editors honors, among others. Winkie was also a 2022 Livingston Awards finalist.

Award-Winning Piece: BROKEN TRACK: Suicides & suffering in Army’s exhausted armor community

Eve Sampson

Eve Sampson covers international news as a reporter for The New York Times as a member of the 2024-25 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their careers. She previously was an intern for The Washington Post reporting on the international desk. Eve served in the U.S. Army as an engineer officer after graduating from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 2016 where she was a part of the Psi Chi International Honor Society. She left the Army to pursue a master’s degree at the University of Maryland in 2021. Since graduating, she’s written for The Washington Post, The Associated Press and most recently the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

Award-Winning Piece: Ukraine is now the most mined country. It will take decades to make safe 

Jonathan Levinson

Jonathan Levinson is a writer pursuing an MFA from NYU and writing about the human capacity to perpetrate violence. Until December 2023, he covered policing and extremism for Oregon Public Broadcasting. Previously, he covered Mexico as a freelancer. His radio work has appeared on NPR, Marketplace and the CBC. His photography has been featured in ESPN, The Washington Post and Bloomberg News. He has been a guest on CNN, PBS Newshour and MSNBC. Jonathan spent five years as an infantry officer in the U.S. Army and has a master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University.

Award-Winning Piece: Pilot accused of trying to shut down plane engines was afraid to report depression, colleagues say

Jonathan McCall

Jonathan McCall is a weekend anchor and reporter for 12News, contributing across shows and platforms. He joined Team 12 in May 2022. He previously anchored and reported for KRON4 in San Francisco. He’s also worked in Tulsa, Baltimore, Kansas City, and Las Vegas. Jonathan’s work has been honored by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for Best News Anchor, Best Breaking News Report, and Best Newscast. He has anchored hours of live coverage of several breaking news events, including the San Jose VTA Railyard Mass Shooting, and the January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol Building. He also provided live talkbacks for CNN during the police shooting death of Terence Crutcher. Before stepping in front of a camera, Jonathan was a certified meteorologist for the U.S. Navy during Operation Enduring Freedom where he helped pilots plan missions in order to hit enemy targets during the war. He earned his B.A. in Communications from Lamar University and is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists.

Award-Winning Piece: Valley veterans waited months for cancer results after testing kits were found sitting in USPS warehouse

Josh Sanchez

Josh Sanchez has been an evening reporter for WLNS for three years. He also balances his growing career alongside eight years of service with the U.S. Coast Guard Reserves. In addition to general assignments, Sanchez has worked extensively with other reporters as part of the “6 News Investigates” team. His passion for collaboration and teamwork led to several Michigan Association of Broadcasters awards for the WLNS evening news team.

Award-Winning Piece: Red, Pink and Taxes: Left living in unsafe homes

Peter O’Cain

Peter O’Cain is a news editor at The Wenatchee World in North Central Washington, where he first started as a reporter. His primary coverage area has been public safety, though he digs into veterans issues. He explained that those beats converged twice within 18 months when veterans experiencing mental health crises were shot by police. The shootings and the lack of mental health services is the subject of his award-winning story.

Peter served in the Marine Corps from 2003-2007 and deployed twice to Iraq. He later received a journalism degree from Central Washington University.

Award-Winning Piece: How a lack of veterans mental health services contributed to 2 police shootings in 18 months

Rachel Nostrant

Rachel Nostrant covers national news as a reporter for The New York Times as a member of the 2024-25 Times Fellowship class. She is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and has experience reporting on an array of stories including the war in Ukraine, water contamination in the U.S., cultural impacts of the Maui wildfires and the migrant housing crisis in NYC. Her work has been published in New York Magazine, Reuters, the AP, Insider, Military Times and more.

Award-Winning Piece: Unsupervised: Military Child Care Centers Slow to Report Abuse with Little Oversight 

Rebecca Murga

Rebecca Murga is a Chicago-born, Latinx, WGA writer specializing in telling stories of her Puerto Rican roots and military experience. Rebecca is a passionate advocate for veterans and women’s issues with articles published in The New York Times, The Global Journal, The Morning Call and San Jose Mercury News. She has appeared on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” “The View” and featured on NPR as the director of a short film “War Ink,” which tells veteran’s war stories through their tattoos. Rebecca started her career as a sports producer and joined the military shortly after 9/11, serving as a Public Affairs Officer in the U.S. Army – deployed to Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan. She was awarded a Bronze Star for her deployment as one of the first women attached to Navy SEALS and Special Forces. She returned to the states to work as a Spanish news producer covering a variety of stories including U.S. Special Forces battling the cartel in Mexico and Central America. Rebecca has been the recipient of several grants including the National Association of Latino Independent Producers grant sponsored by the Time Warner Foundation and National Endowment of the Arts. She has also been the recipient of the Panavision New Filmmakers Grant, The Nancy Malone Directing Award, Indiegogo New Filmmakers Grant and a grant from the Disabled American Veterans.

Award-Winning Piece: The Promised Land

Sonner Kehrt

Sonner Kehrt is an investigative reporter at The War Horse, where she covers the military and climate change, misinformation and gender. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, WIRED magazine, Inside Climate News, The Verge and other publications. She studied government at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and served for five years as Coast Guard officer before earning a master’s in democracy and governance studies from Georgetown University and a master’s of journalism from UC Berkeley. She has also worked as a lecturer at UC Berkeley, teaching classes in writing, reporting and ethics.

Award-Winning Piece: Her Flight Instructor Sexually Harassed Her. The Marine Corps Tried to Kick Her Out.

Thomas Gibbons-Neff

Thomas Gibbons-Neff is on the national desk at the New York Times, covering guns in the U.S. Prior to his current position, he covered the Pentagon and other assignments, such as the 2017 Niger ambush, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and the Syrian civil war, for the Washington Post. Thomas served in the military as a Marine Corps infantryman and was deployed twice to Afghanistan – first in 2008 during George W. Bush’s presidency, then again in 2009 as part of Barack Obama’s troop surge.

Award-Winning Piece: Ukraine, a Sniper Mission and the Myth of the ‘Good Kill’

The above-mentioned veteran journalists have not only elevated the standards of the field but have also fostered public understanding and awareness of critical issues. Their collective efforts will inspire future generations of journalists, both military veterans and civilians.

“The Military Veterans in Journalism team congratulates each of this year’s Top 10 Veterans award winners,” said MVJ Partnership Director Devon Lancia. “This achievement marks their dedication to making an impact and informing the American public via quality coverage, and we are honored to have these journalists as part of the MVJ community.”