Nate Beeler, The Examiner’s editorial cartoonist, has joined the elite of his profession with an award from the National Press Foundation.
Beeler was given the 2009 Clifford K. & James T. Berryman Award for Editorial Cartoons, it was announced today.
Past winners include Steve Breen, Ann Telnaes, Signe Wilkinson, Stuart Carlson, Jim Morin and David Horsey — all Pulitzer Prize winners.
“Not only is Nate a fine draftsman and a natural wit, he’s also a first-rate journalist,” said Stephen G. Smith, executive editor of The Washington Examiner. “He has a sharp eye for incompetence and hypocrisy in government, and his cartoons draw attention to these failings as powerfully as any written commentary. With his work also available on the Web, Nate provides encouragement to other young cartoonists who may mistakenly feel that their passion is a dying form.”
Smith has been a Foundation board member since 2005 but was not involved in judging the cartoon contest.
The Berryman judges said they were “taken with Nate Beeler’s technical skill and wry sense of humor. His grasp of politics is excellent, which is particularly important when you’re drawing for an audience of Washington insiders. Beeler is a new talent in one of the most popular forms of journalism.”
Beeler, 28, worked at The Journal newspaper chain in suburban Washington before it became The Examiner in 2005. His work appears in the three Examiner papers in Washington, San Francisco and Baltimore, and is routinely reprinted in such papers as USA Today, the Los Angeles Times and The Arizona Republic. He’s syndicated nationally in more than 800 papers.
Beeler won the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists “Golden Spike” award in 2007, the group’s 50th anniversary.
He lives in Alexandria with his fiancee and their 7-month-old son.
