For decades, Ken Auletta has written about the media business and the movers and shakers of the information age, as the “Annals of Communications” columnist and profile writer for The New Yorker and a best-selling author. His profiles of media moguls such as Barry Diller, Rupert Murdoch, Ted Turner and Michael Eisner, and his reporting on the inner workings of Microsoft, Google, Facebook and more led the Columbia Journalism Review to call Auletta the country’s premier media critic.

Covering the media business isn’t the career that Auletta anticipated when he came to the Maxwell School in 1963 for graduate work in political science—he pictured himself working in government or perhaps joining the foreign service. But reflecting on his career path, he sees a clear connection between his political studies and his beat as a journalist.

“The line I would draw is that I view journalism as public service,” he says. “It’s a public calling, the way government is, and you have a responsibility to report the closest version of the truth you can. One of the essential checks and balances for government—or for anyone, be it a justice, a Hollywood actor, a studio head or head of a media company—is the press.”

In recognition of his career contributions, Auletta will receive the Maxwell 1924 Award, named for Maxwell’s founding year and established to honor an alumnus for distinguished and sustained professional or civic leadership and achievement in the spirit of the school’s mission. The award will be presented in Washington, D.C., on April 7, as part of the inaugural Maxwell Awards of Excellence.