James O’Keefe Wins 2014 YCC Buckley Award

At their annual awards ceremony, The Young Conservatives Coalition awarded five people, including investigative journalist James O’Keefe, their 2014 Buckley Awards. The YCC is a DC-based leadership, educational and networking association for young conservative professionals.

The YCC awards the Young Professional Conservative Leadership “Buckley Award” to five “young professionals in recognition of significant achievements in advancing the conservative cause.” “The award is in honor of William F. Buckley, Jr. – the intellectual godfather of the modern conservative movement, who founded National Review and wrote God & Man at Yale all before the age of 30,” according their website.

“James O’Keefe truly is a hero among us,” began Let Freedom Ring USA President Colin Hannah in his introduction of O’Keefe. “James O’Keefe personifies courage in a way that very few of us can even fully comprehend.”

“It’s been quite a wild ride for me, these last five years,” said O’Keefe when accepting the award.

“The media is no longer really biased, O’Keefe stated in his speech. “They are now actively engaged in news suppression.”

O’Keefe added to his critique of the mainstream media: “In journalism today, you must be adversarial. It’s very difficult to be a part of the machine and be a journalist. You must branch out on your own.”

Following the event, Project Veritas interviewed two key people involved with the awards presentation.

“James O’Keefe’s brand of investigative journalism has yielded serious results,” said YCC President Chris Malagisi. “He’s played a critical role in helping advance conservative principles in a unique way, and the YCC is proud to honor him and his courageous work.”

“I think he finally put to rest this notion that voter fraud is a myth, because he proved without any shadow of a doubt how easy it was for people who are not the voter in question to in fact show up and cast a fraudulent vote,” added Colin Hanna after the ceremony.

The other award winners were Editor in Chief Matthew Continetti of the Washington Free Beacon, Executive Director Roger Custer of America’s Future Foundation, Founder and Principal Attorney Dan Backer of DB Capitol Strategies and Chief Operating Officer Ryan P. Williams of The Claremont Institute.

James O’Keefe serves as the President of Project Veritas, whose mission is to investigate and expose corruption, dishonesty, self-dealing, waste, fraud and other misconduct. O’Keefe is a graduate of Rutgers University. A congressional resolution was introduced in 2009 with 31 cosponsors praising him for his work. He was the recipient of the Robert Novak Award for Journalistic Excellence in 2011, has been named “Fox News Power Player of the Week” twice by Chris Wallace, and was placed on the Forbes 30 under 30 for media moguls.