Tickets are now available for the 2024 William S. Dixon, First Amendment Freedom Award event. The event is scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024, at 11:30 a.m. at the Sandia Golf Club, located at 30 Rainbow Road. Tickets are priced at $60 per person.
The annual Dixon event recognizes New Mexicans who support government transparency at state or local levels and have made significant contributions to increasing transparency in government operations within the state.
Ben Tobin, a Pulitzer Prize winner, will be the keynote speaker for this year's New Mexico Foundation for Open Government (FOG) William S. Dixon First Amendment Awards luncheon on Oct. 15, 2024, at the Sandia Golf Club in Albuquerque.
Tobin was part of the team that won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Breaking News Reporting for uncovering pardons issued by former Kentucky governor Matt Bevin. The Pulitzer Prize committee credited the Courier’s team with “rapid coverage of hundreds of last-minute pardons by Kentucky’s governor, showing how the process was marked by opacity, racial disparities and violations of legal norms.”
Former Governor Bevin issued more than 600 pardons toward the end of his term. Tobin's team exposed that many individuals who received pardons had committed violent crimes, leading to widespread public reaction across political lines.
Currently, Tobin works as a reporter for the Triangle Business Journal where he covers growth and development in North Carolina's Greater Triangle region.