The Center for Media and Public Affairs has chosen Sun staff writer David Folkenflik as the winner of the first Paul Mongerson Prize for Investigative Reporting on the Media.

Folkenflik, The Sun's television writer, will be cited in Washington today for his stories discrediting a report by Fox News correspondent Geraldo Rivera on a "friendly fire" incident in Afghanistan.

"Everybody criticizes the media, but almost no one makes the effort to critically examine the flaws in particular news stories," said Robert Lichter, director of the center, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research organization that studies news and entertainment media. "This prize was given not for media criticism, but for old-fashioned investigative reporting."

The prize, established last year by a grant from Paul Mongerson, a businessman, inventor and author of a book on the power of the media, recognizes outstanding reporting that critically analyses misrepresentations reported in the news. Co-sponsored by the Center for Media and Public Affairs and the Center for Governmental Studies at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, it aims to "encourage the efforts of journalists to hold their profession to the highest standards of fairness and accuracy while preserving our First Amendment rights." It carries a $10,000 cash award.

Judges for the prize included Morton Kondracke, executive editor of Roll Call and co-host of Fox News' Beltway Boys and Jane Hall, former Los Angeles Times writer and associate director of Dialogue With the Press at American University.