Mark Steyn Watch: Steyn Wins 2006 Breindel Award for Excellence in Journalism

Mark Steyn at the Claremont Institute Dinner, December 5, 2005

Two journalists whose writings do not try to march in lockstep with the mainstream media last night were presented with the Eric Breindel Award for Excellence in Opinion Journalism.

Mark Steyn, a syndicated columnist whose work – on topics ranging from politics to diplomacy to popular culture – appears in National Review, The New Criterion and The Atlantic Monthly, among many other publications, won the eighth annual award, and a check for $20,000, following a reception at the New-York Historical Society.

And Matt Mireles, a junior at Columbia University and contributor to the Daily Spectator, took home the first annual award for excellence in college journalism, which includes a $10,000 check and a summer internship at the Fox News Channel.

This award honors The Post’s late editorial-page editor, who died in 1998 at age 42. It is bestowed by the Eric Breindel Memorial Foundation and endowed by News Corp., The Post’s parent company.

Each year, the prize recognizes the work of a columnist, editorialist or writer whose work best reflects love of this country and its democratic institutions. Steyn, though a native of Canada, clearly reflects these virtues, as a reading of one of his prize-winning columns, “Be Glad the Flag Is Worth Burning,” demonstrates: “One of the big lessons of these last four years is that many, many beneficiaries of Western civilization loathe that civilization,” he wrote, “and the media are generally inclined to blur the extent of that loathing.”

Congrats, Mark!

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