- 2022 – Andie Tucher, Not Exactly Lying: Fake News and Fake Journalism in American History
- 2021 – Celeste González de Bustamante and Jeannine Relly, Surviving Mexico: Resistance and Resilience among Journalists in the Twenty-First Century
- 2020 – Allissa V. Richardson, Bearing Witness While Black: African Americans, Smartphones & the New Protest #Journalism
- 2019 – Vincent DiGirolamo, Crying the News: A History of America’s Newsboys
- 2018 – Matthew Hindman, The Internet Trap: How the Digital Economy Builds Monopolies and Undermines Democracy
- 2017 – Natalia Roudakova, Losing Pravda: Ethics and the Press in Post-Truth Russia
- 2016 – James T. Hamilton, Democracy’s Detectives: The Economics of Investigative Journalism
- 2015 – Victor Pickard, America’s Battle for Media Democracy: The Triumph of Corporate Libertarianism and the Future of Media
- 2014 – Seth K.Goldman and Diana Mutz, The Obama Effect: How the 2008 Campaign Changed White Racial Attitudes
- 2013 – Gwyneth Mellinger ,Chasing Newsroom Diversity: From Jim Crow to Affirmative Action
- 2012 – Maurine H. Beasley, Women of the Washington Press: Politics, Prejudice, and Persistence
- 2011 – Marshall Poe, A History of Communication: Media and Society from the Evolution of Speech to the Internet
- 2010 – Mark Feldstein, Poisoning the Press: Richard Nixon, Jack Anderson, and the Rise of Washington’s Scandal Culture
- 2009 – Clifford G. Christians, Theodore L. Glasser, Denis McQuail, Kaarle Nordenstreng and Robert A. White, Normative Theories of the Media: Journalism in Democratic Societies
- 2008 – Kathy Roberts Forde, Literary Journalism on Trial: Masson v. New Yorker and the First Amendment
- 2007 – Robert Hariman and John Louis Lucaites, No Caption Needed: Iconic Photographs, Public Culture and Liberal Democracy
- 2006 – Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff, The Race Beat: the Press, the Civil Rights Struggle and the Awakening of a Nation
- 2005 – Chad Raphael, Investigated Reporting: Muckrakers, Regulators, and the Struggle over Television Documentary
- 2004 – James T. Hamilton, All in the News That’s Fit to Sell: How the Market Transforms Information Into News
- 2003 – Robert Miraldi, The Pen is Mightier: The Muckraking Life of Charles Edward Russell
- 2002 – Vincent Fitzpatrick, Gerald W. Johnson: from Southern Liberal to National Conscience
- 2001 – Leonard Ray Teel, Ralph Emerson McGill: Voice of the Southern Conscience
- 2000 – Robert Entman and Andrew Rojecki, The Black Image in the WHite Mind: Media and Race in America
- 1999 – Robert McChesney, Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times
- 1998 – James Ettema and Theodore Glasser, Custodians of Conscience: Investigative Journalism and Public Virtue
- 1997 – Michael Robertson, Stephen Crane, Journalism and the Making of MOdern American Literature
- 1996 – Peter Canning, American Dreamers: The Wallaces and Reader’s Digest
- 1995 – Joyce Hoffman, Theodore H. White and JOurnalism as Illusion
- 1994 – Thomas Maier, Newhouse: All the Glitter, Power and Glory of America’s Richest MEdia EMpire and the Secretive Man Behind It
- 1993 – Bryan Gruley, Paper Losses: A Modern Epic of Greed & Betrayal at America’s Two Largest Newspaper Companies
- 1992 – Vance H. Trimble, The Astonishing Mr. Scripps: The Turbulent Life of America’s Penny Press Lord
- 1991 – Daniel W. Pfaff, Joseph Pulitzer II and The Post-Dispatch: A Newspaperman’s Life
- 1990 – Peter Kurth, American Cassandra
- 1989 – Hazel Dicken-Garcia, Journalistic Standards in Nineteenth-Century America
- 1988 – Marie Brenner, House of Dreams: The Bingham Family of Louisville
- 1987 – James L. Baughman, Luce and the Rise of American News Media
- 1986 – Ann M. Sperber, Ed Murrow, His Life and Times
- 1985 – Roy Hoopes, Ralph Ingersoll, A Biography
- 1984 – Robert W. Desmond, Tiedes of War, World News Reporting 1931-1945
- 1983 – E. Eugene Goodwin, Groping for Ethics in Journalism
- 1982 – John Naisbitt, Megatrends
- 1981 – Edwin Bayley, Joe McCarthy and the Press
- 1980 – Ronald Steel, Walter Lippman and the American Century
- 1979 – David Halberstam, The Powers That Be
- 1978 – Kevin M. McAuliffe, The Great American Newspaper, Rise and Fall of the Village Voice
- 1977 – Chalmers M. Roberts, The Washington Post: The First 100 Years
- 1976 – William Porter, Assault on the Media, the Nixon Years
- 1975 – Claude-Anne Lopez and Eugenia W. Herbert, The Private Franklin: The Man and His Family
- 1974 – Merlo S. Pusey, Eugene Meyer
- 1973 – Marion K. Sanders, Dorothy Thompson
- 1972 – William E. Ames, History of the National Intelligencer
- 1971 – Charles H. Brown, William Cullen Bryant
- 1970 – Special Award to Eric Barnouw for his three-volume history of Radio-Television
- 1969 – Calder Pickett, Ed Howe, Country Town Philosopher
- 1968 – Bryce W. Rucker, The First Freedom
- 1967 – James W. Markham, Voices of the Red Giants
- 1966 – Oliver Knight, I Protest
- 1965 – Elmer E. Cornwell, Jr., Presidential Leadership of Public Opinion
- 1964 – Wilbur Schramm, Mass Media and National Development: The Role of Information in Developing Countries
- 1963 – Peter Lyon, The Life and Times of S.S. McClure
- 1962 – Theodore E. Kruglak, The Two Faces of Tass
- 1961 – William S. Swanberg, Citizen Hearst
- 1960 – Leonard W. Levy, Legacy of Supression: Freedom of Speech and Press in American History
- 1959 – Warren C. Price, The Literature of Journalism
- 1958 – Arthur M. Schlesinger, Prelude to Independence
- 1957 – Frank Luther Mott, A History of American Magazines 1895-1905
- 1956 – Frederick S. Siebert, Theodore Peterson, and Wilbur Schramm, Four Theories of the Press
- 1955 – J. Cutler Andrews, The North Reports the Civil War
- 1954 – James W. Markham, Bovard of the Post-Dispatch
- 1953 – Harold L. Cross, The people’s Right to Know
- 1952 – Frederick S. Siebert, Freedom of the Press in England, 1467-1775
- 1951 – Meyer Berger, The Story of the New York Times
- 1950 – Alex Inkles, Public Opinion in Soviet Russia
- 1949 – Herbert Brucker, Freedom of Information
- 1948 – Paul Lazerfeld and Patricia Kendall, Radio Listening in America
- 1947 – Clarence S. Brigham, History and Bibliography of American Newspapers
- 1946 – Bruce L. Smith, Harold D. Lasswell, and Ralph D. Casey, Propaganda Communications, and Public Opinion: A Comprehensive Reference Guide
- 1945 – Neil Borden, National Advertising in Newspapers
- 1944 – Thomas E. Dabney, One Hundred Great Years: A History of The New Orleans Times-Picayune