About Young America’s Foundation

Young America’s Foundation is committed to ensuring that increasing numbers of young Americans understand and are inspired by the ideas of individual freedom, a strong national defense, free enterprise, and traditional values.

As the principal outreach organization of the Conservative Movement, the Foundation introduces thousands of American youth to these principles by providing essential conferences, seminars, educational materials, internships, and speakers to young people across the country.

Young America’s Foundation has a deep relationship with President Reagan. The foundation stepped forward to save President Reagan’s Western White House, Rancho del Cielo, in the spring of 1998 to preserve it as a living monument to Ronald Reagan to pass on his ideas to future generations. President Reagan committed himself to reach young people with his ideas—a goal that is also central to the Foundation’s mission.

The Foundation has several important centers and departments, including Rancho Del Cielo, The Reagan Ranch Center, Reagan’s Boyhood Home, the National Journalism Center, Young Americans for Freedom, and Center for Entrepreneurship & Free Enterprise, etc.

About the YAF National Journalism Center

Since 1977, the National Journalism Center has trained aspiring journalists in the values of responsible, balanced, and accurate reporting.

The NJC offers an intense, 12-week in-person paid internship in the nation’s capital, training aspiring reporters in the fundamentals of responsible, fearless, and truth-seeking journalism. The internship combines on-the-job training with once-weekly seminars featuring off-the-record briefings with distinguished journalists, public policy experts, and lawmakers.

At the NJC, students spend an average of 30 hours weekly gaining practical, hands-on journalism experience at designated media work placements throughout the D.C. area. NJC students are matched with print, broadcast, or online media outlets based on the individual student’s interests and skills. Potential placements include the Hill, the Federalist, the Washington Examiner, Townhall, National Review, the Daily Caller, and many more. The NJC provides a generous $1,500 tax-free monthly stipend. A housing scholarship of up to $500 is also available for qualified candidates. The internships are full-time, five days a week.

About The Dao Prize

The Dao Prize, funded by the Dao Feng and Angela Foundation and launched in conjunction with Young America’s Foundation’s National Journalism Center (NJC), is an annual award founded to recognize excellence in investigative journalism. Dao Prize-winning journalism stands out for accuracy and courage.

The Dao Prize will be judged by an independent prize committee and a guest judge, which will cast secret ballots after a round of debate and discussion. Forms will be signed and preserved. Judges will have no subsequent interaction with applicants in regard to their submissions outside the form itself, with the exception of logistical questions. A judge cannot vote for a story from their own news outlet, or for a story they worked on personally.

Entries will be evaluated on five key criteria: investigative depth, public interest, fairness and accuracy, style, and impact.

Winners will then be announced at a celebratory dinner held in Washington, D.C. The first-prize winners will be awarded $100,000, two finalists will receive $10,000 each, and two new $10,000 awards for multimedia and local journalism will be awarded as well.

It is available to all American media outlets, including print, broadcast, podcast, Substack, etc.

About the Grants

In 2023, the Dao Feng and Angela Foundation partnered with Young America’s Foundation’s prestigious National Journalism Center with a commitment to provide a 10-year grant in the amount of $300,000 per year to honor truth-seeking journalists.

Why We Founded The Dao Prize

As trust in media hovers near record lows, DAF and NJC believe it is essential to celebrate reporters advancing the public interest through robust investigative work. Too often, the media establishment celebrates work that protects power rather than challenging it. The Dao Prize will honor truth above all else.

Dao Feng He and Angela He started Dao Feng and Angela Foundation with a passion for freedom. As immigrants from China, Dao Feng and Angela know firsthand the importance of a free press and hope to revive the American media’s spirit of curiosity, skepticism, and vigor. Dao Feng observed that in the United States, investigative journalists face increasing constraints around political correctness, and because of this, are discouraged from tackling certain investigations and reporting the truth. This caused him to think of a way in which a group could come alongside his foundation to award the bravery so needed in today’s journalism landscape. 

The Dao Feng and Angela Foundation is passionate about this prize, and firmly believes that for America to preserve her founding principles and hold elected officials accountable, courageous journalists are essential. The Dao Prize will award these courageous journalists and give them the recognition often ignored by other organizations and media outlets.

Mr. Dao Feng He shared more his stories and thoughts about why he decided to initiate the Dao Prize in two articles as below:

Is it time for an alternative to the Pulitzer Prize?

My Suffering in Communist China Taught Me the Importance of a Free Press in America

The Inaugural Winner of the Dao Prize

On November 2, 2023, Young America’s Foundation’s prestigious National Journalism Center in partnership with the Dao Feng and Angela Foundation is proud to announce the inaugural winner of the Dao Prize – the Twitter Files.

Through their tireless, truth-seeking reporting, Bari Weiss, Matt Taibbi, and Michael Shellenberger have demonstrated the power and importance of courageous journalism.

Finalists for the Dao Prize also included Aaron Sibarium of the Washington Free Beacon and Joseph Simonson and Andrew Kerr of the Washington Free Beacon.

“The inaugural Dao Prize was a roaring success and a giant step forward for America’s broken media. NJC is so eager to bring the values of good old-fashioned investigative reporting back to an industry that desperately needs it,” said Emily Jashinsky, Director of the National Journalism Center.

“I could not be more grateful that you’ve chosen to create such a significant new prize for old-school, fact-based reporting,” Matt Taibbi said during his acceptance speech, “The journalism profession has become hopelessly politicized in recent years. Editors now care more about narrative than fact, and as many of the people in this room know, there are now fairly extreme penalties for failing to toe party lines. This begins with pressures within the business to conform and continues with algorithmic targeting of advertisers of the sort that the Washington Examiner and its excellent reporter Gabe Kaminsky, who’s here tonight, reported on.”

“It’s my hope and belief that the DAO Prize, by giving such work recognition, can help begin the process of bringing suppressed factual journalism out of the basement. It’s my hope journalists will someday look back at this moment as a turning point.” Matt Taibbi said.

The full speech can be read here or watched on YAF’s YouTube channel.

An Update in 2024

In 2024, inspired by the 2023 applications, the Dao Prize added two categories of the awards: Multimedia and Local Journalism.

“NJC is honored to expand on the successful Dao Prize by recognizing tireless local and multimedia journalists whose truth-seeking work too often goes unrewarded. This is a transformational addition, not only for the Dao Prize, but for the media at large,” said Emily Jashinsky, director of the National Journalism Center. “Reporters around the country can now take comfort in knowing the Dao Prize is eager to support their bold pursuit of local and multimedia journalism that challenges power.”

This year, the National Journalism Center is excited to welcome Miranda Devine as a guest judge alongside the Board’s other esteemed panelists. Devine is an Australian journalist whose work has appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald, The Daily Telegraph, Sky News, and Fox News. Most recently she conducted reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop for the NY Post and authored a best-selling book on the topic, Laptop from Hell: Hunter Biden, Big Tech and the Dirty Secrets the President Tried to Hide.

The second annual Dao Prize was awarded on Nov. 13, 2024 in Washington, D.C. Susan Crabtree of RealClearPolitics won the Second Annual Dao Prize for Excellence in Investigative Journalism.

Crabtree was nominated for her investigative coverage of the United States Secret Service, especially her reporting on the fallout from the first assassination attempt on President-elect Donald Trump. Her deeply sourced coverage revealed an agency reeling from mismanagement and political gamesmanship, each placing the public and high-profile figures in harm’s way. For her first-place finish, Crabtree received $100,000 in prize winnings.

“What she uncovered directly impugned the Secret Service’s motto, ‘Worthy of Trust and Confidence,’” said RealClearPolitics’s Washington editor Carl Cannon. “What her reporting showed is that the Secret Service, just like other once revered federal agencies, including the FBI, has fallen prey to political forces. This is an agency with an annual budget exceeding $3 billion with a single overarching mission: Protect the president, former presidents, and future presidents — and their families.”

He added, “Yet this series is not just about Donald Trump. The Secret Service’s inept leadership and the fallout over its misplaced priorities put our Republic at risk.”

Runners-up for the Second Annual Dao Prize for Excellence in Investigative Journalism included the Washington Examiner’s Gabe Kaminsky, who was nominated for his coverage of a Biden White House executive order that allowed partisan nonprofits to influence voter turnout, and the Washington Examiner’s Anna Giaritelli, who was nominated for her exceptional firsthand, on-the-ground reporting on the immigration crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border. Runners-up were awarded $10,000 each.

In addition to the main prize winner and runners-up, the Dao Prize launched two new categories for its second year. The Dallas Morning News won first place and was awarded $10,000 for the “best local journalism” category for producing “Bleeding Out: A Public Health Crisis in the American Trauma System.” The investigative series by Ari Sen, Lauren Caruba, and Smiley Pool exposed critical gaps in trauma care, revealing that many lives could be saved with better access to blood transfusions in the field.

The Dallas Morning News also took first place and the $10,000 prize in the “best multimedia reporting” category for its series “Deadly Fake: 30 Days Inside Fentanyl’s Grip on North Texas.” This series by Claire Ballor, Maggie Prosser, Sharon Grigsby, and Tom Fox produced 30 days’ worth of stories exposing the full scope and reality of the fentanyl epidemic gripping north Texas.

The Application

Journalists and publications are welcome to submit as many applications for consideration as they like. The full rules for entry are located on the application. Applications are available at njc.yaf.org/DaoPrize, and all applications must be signed and approved by an editor from the publication. All mediums will be considered, including print, broadcast, podcast, Substack, etc.

Please visit The Dao Prize Website to download the form or submit application online.