WBUR Group and Boston University today announced that National Public Radio (NPR) defense correspondent Guy Raz was selected as winner of the 2008 Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize for a three-part series entitled "Rescuing the Wounded: Iraq to Germany" which aired on NPR's “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered” in October 2007.

The Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize, sponsored by Boston University and NPR-member station WBUR-FM, highlights a new generation of public radio journalists and seeks to inspire them to stretch the boundaries of the medium. Over 20 journalists under 35 years old from around the world competed for the $5,000 prize.

Raz will be honored at WBUR's Seventh Annual Public Radio Gala on November 17 at the State Room in Boston . His report focused on the vast improvements in medical care technology, in and near the battlefield since World War I, and the collective impact of such improvements on U.S. soldiers wounded in Iraq . Raz reports that the current unprecedented 97 percent wounded-to-survival ratio for such soldiers has in turn influenced the ways in which the military medical community has adapted its methods to care for injured war veterans.

“Guy Raz's reporting was so vivid I felt I was with him as he helicoptered into the firefight in Iraq, as he waited with the wounded soldier while medics struggled to save his life, and then as Raz traced the soldier's treatment through the MASH unit in Iraq to the hospital in Germany and, finally, the homecoming in the United States,” said finalist judge Tom Fiedler, dean of Boston University's College of Communication.  “This is journalism at its best: informative, urgent, dramatic and smart.”

In addition to Fiedler, the panel of distinguished journalists who served as Schorr prize judges included:

• Sally Eisele, managing editor, Public Affairs, Chicago Public Radio
• Doug Fabrizio, KUER “Radio West” producer and host
• Kelley Griffin, executive producer , KCFR News

• Dan Kennedy, assistant professor, Northeastern University School of Journalism

Raz joined NPR as an intern in 1997, became Berlin bureau chief in 2000, and in 2003, moved to London as NPR's bureau chief. In 2004, Raz left NPR for two years to work as CNN's Jerusalem correspondent. From 2006 to 2008, he has covered the Pentagon. For his reporting on the military, Raz was awarded the 2008 Edward R. Murrow Award for best news series for his reports on rescuing wounded troops in Iraq .

Past recipients of the Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize winners include Laura Sullivan, a national correspondent for National Public Radio and the winner in 2007. Sullivan's three-part series, “Solitary Confinement in U.S. Prisons,” looked at troubling aspects of the practice of penitentiary confinement and featured interviews with inmates who had not spoken to individuals other than prison staff for a number of years. The 2006 recipient was Lourdes Garcia-Navarro, then a foreign correspondent for NPR in Mexico City . Her two-part series entitled “ Migrants' Job Search Empties Mexican Community ” focused on the increasingly negative impact of migration on the provincial Mexican capitol of Malinalco.

Schorr, currently a senior analyst for NPR, has had a distinguished, award-winning career in broadcast journalism, working with such pioneers as Edward R. Murrow at CBS and CNN's Ted Turner. Schorr's integrity and professionalism provided the vision for the journalism award bearing his name.