2026 PRIZE OF EXCELLENCE AWARDEE

Carla Babb has covered national security and foreign policy for nearly two decades. From 2014 until the administration revoked most Pentagon press credentials in 2025, Babb reported daily from the Pentagon, where she questioned senior military leaders, traveled to war zones with Secretaries of Defense and top generals, and reported on all aspects of the military. Currently the national security correspondent for Newsmax, Babb previously worked as the Pentagon correspondent for Voice of America and Sightline Media Group, which owns Defense News and Military Times.

Babb has broken several significant stories throughout her career, including the attack on American troops at Al-Asad Air Base in Iraq in 2020, U.S. military interdictions of illicit tankers in 2025 and scoops on troop deployments and other operational news during the war with Iran in 2026. She was the first reporter to obtain footage of American troops training Ukrainians following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the first reporter to go down into new missile silos in Fort Greely, Alaska. She was also the first reporter to embed with U.S. troops on a counter-poaching mission in Africa.

 Babb has a proven track record of holding leaders to account, pressing then-Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin about his decisions during the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan just two weeks after the withdrawal ended, and reporting that Coast Guard officials' experiences contradicted U.S. politicians' claims in 2025 about the threat posed by survivors of a strike on an alleged drug boat — survivors who were then killed in a follow-up U.S. strike on their stranded vessel. Content from her interviews with top generals and admirals has made headlines in outlets including The Washington Post, Newsweek, Fox and NBC. 

Whether she’s flying in an F-16 over the Arctic Circle or trekking through the jungles of Gabon, Babb goes anywhere the story takes her. Babb’s work has been honored by the Press Club of Atlantic City, the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation, Military Reporters and Editors, and regional AP and SPJ chapters.