Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger wins Harvard journalism award

Harvard University has announced Alan Rusbridger, the editor-in-chief of the Guardian, as the recipient of a prestigious award for "excellence in journalism". The university said it had chosen Rusbridger in recognition of a career in journalism spanning four decades. In the announcement, Harvard cited his "leadership in the Guardian's five-year investigation and exposure of phone hacking by employees of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp". It also noted Rusbridger's stewardship of the Guardian's WikiLeaks coverage, and his involvement in developing the Guardian's digital-first business strategy. To mark the award, the Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism , Rusbridger will deliver a speech at Harvard's John F Kennedy school of government in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on March 6. Past recipients of the award, sponsored by the Joan Shorenstein center on the press, politics and public policy, include Vanity Fair writer Seymour Hersh, the noted CNN international correspondent Christiane Amanpour, and the veteran former New York Times critic Frank Rich. A prize for investigative reporting will be announced alongside the career award: the finalists include the Associated Press investigative team for its revelations of the extent to which the New York police department has been spying on Muslims across the north-east of the United States; an investigation by the non-profit group ProPublica into the practice of presidential pardons; and the revelation by ABC News of allegations that errors by the Peace Corps led to the murder of a volunteer in Benin.