Sen. Mitt Romney to be keynote speaker at 2023 Toner Prizes ceremony

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Utah Sen. Mitt Romney will be the keynote speaker for the Newhouse School of Public Communications’ Washington D.C. Toner Prize ceremony at the end of March, Syracuse University announced in a Tuesday afternoon news release.

Past keynote speakers are typically former or active members of the federal government. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was the keynote speaker in 2022.

The Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting, which Newhouse established in 2009, commemorates the work of Robin Toner, an SU alumna who was the first woman to be a national political correspondent for The New York Times.

The prize gives two winners a $5,000 honorarium each year, with one prize recognizing excellent national reporting and the other recognizing excellent local reporting on topics related to democracy, public engagement and the electoral process, according to the Toner Prize website.

Submissions are judged based on how they embody the standards and depth of Toner’s work, the website reads, and are entered from December to mid-January. Over her 25 years at The Times, Toner covered a great number of congressional, gubernatorial and presidential elections, according to a Newhouse memo.

Toner covered most of the nation’s major policy and political issues, the description reads. In 1992, Toner served as The Times’ lead reporter for the presidential election of Bill Clinton.

Before becoming a member of the U.S. Senate, Romney ran in the Republican Party’s presidential primary in 2008 and as the Republican nominee for president in 2012. Romney, who served one term as the governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007, was elected to the Senate in the 2018 midterms, and currently serves on four congressional committees, including the committees on Foreign Relations; Health, Education, Labor and Pensions; Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs; and Budget.

The 2022 Toner Prize for national reporting went to The Washington Post for “The Attack,” and the local Toner Prize went to the Atlanta Constitution-Journal for “Inside the Campaign to Undermine Georgia’s Election.” Other previous winners for the national and local reporting prizes include David A. Graham for his election reporting in The Atlantic and the LehighValleyLive.com staff for “Swing County, Swing State,” respectively.

The award ceremony is set to take place at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, D.C. on March 27 at 6 p.m.