Late ‘shoe leather’ Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter, Washington Post win President’s Awards

Investigative reporter Jeff German pursued organized crime figures, kidnappers and killers, his editor told a National Press Club audience Wednesday. But it was a down-ballot politician who is accused of taking his life.

“He was foremost an old-school, shoe leather, phone-line burning reporter,” said Glenn Cook, executive editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “And he feared no one, not even the mob associate who sucker punched him at the beginning of his career.”

It was German’s probe of wrongdoing by Clark County Public Administrator Robert Telles that ended tragically. German was stabbed to death outside his home last Sept. 2. Telles is charged with his murder.

German, a reporter for more than four decades, was honored with the President’s Award at the Club’s Awards Dinner Wednesday.

“Our hearts go out to Jeff’s family and colleagues at the Review Journal,” Club President Eileen O’Reilly said. “We hope they find some closure in the upcoming trial in November.”

The Club also presented a President’s Award to Lizzie Johnson, a reporter for The Washington Post, who wrote a story that emanated from an investigation into a Ponzi scheme targeting Mormon investors that German had begun just before he was killed.

“This sends a strong message that even the death of a journalist will not stop that person’s journalism,” O’Reilly said.

Journalists should never take lightly intimidation from targets of their investigations, Cook said. The killing of German is an example of the increasing threats to journalists and journalism. He also referred to the wrongful detention in Russia of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and a recent police raid on the offices of the Marion Country Record in Kansas.

“Whether we’re fighting for public records from a city government or covering a war, the world depends on us to find the truth, and an attack on one of us, whether it’s Jeff German, Evan Gershkovich or the Marion County Record, is an attack on all of us,” Cook said.  “Thanks to the National Press Club for keeping press freedoms at the forefront. Tonight is a reminder that we must never, ever stop fighting.”

The Review-Journal is defending the Nevada reporters’ shield law before the state’s supreme court in an effort to prevent Las Vegas police and prosecutors from searching without restriction German’s cell phone and computers that were seized from his home after his death, Cook said.

The honors for German and Johnson punctuated the 50th annual Club awards dinner, which recognized some of the best journalism of last year.

O’Reilly began the evening by highlighting two reporters for whom the Club has been advocating – Gershkovich and Austin Tice, an American reporter who has been held in Syria for more than 11 years.

“We call on the United States government to bring these journalists home today,” O’Reilly said.