Courtesy photo Yamiche Alcindor, the White House correspondent for PBS NewsHour, has been named the recipient of the New England First Amendment Coalition's 2021 Stephen Hamblett First Amendment Award. Hamblett, who died several years ago, began his journalism career at the Nashua Telegraph, where his father, Robert, was a publisher and part-owner. (Courtesy photo)

BOSTON – Veteran journalist Yamiche Alcindor, currently the White House correspondent for PBS NewsHour, has been selected the recipient of the 2021 Stephen Hamblett First Amendment Award, named in honor of the late Nashua native and Telegraph reporter and director and presented each year by the New England First Amendment Coalition.

Alcindor, who has also worked as a national political reporter for The New York Times and a national breaking-news reporter for USA Today, will receive the award at NEFAC’s 11th annual awards ceremony on April 21.

Hamblett, whose father, Robert B. Hamblett, was president of the then-Nashua Telegraph when he died in 1974, served on the newspaper’s board for a number of years, as did his brother, the late David Hamblett.

Stephen Hamblett, who was 71 when he died in 2005, had spent his entire career in the newspaper business, most recently serving as the publisher of The Providence Journal.

Shortly after his passing, NEFAC created the award in his name to be given to “an individual who has promoted, defended, or advocated for the First Amendment.”

Stephen Hamblett

At the time of Hamblett’s death, Thomas E. Heslin, then executive director of the Providence Journal, said Hamblett “was widely respected as a great businessman, but he knew that good journalism is good business. The newsroom always knew it had his support,” Heslin added.

Hamblett first dabbled in journalism as a student at then-Nashua Junior High School, where he served as an editor “The Broadcaster,” the school newspaper.

While in high school, then college, he worked summers in the Telegraph newsroom as a reporter.

Hamblett attended Phillips Exeter Academy, then graduated from Harvard in 1957.

A biography on the NEFAC website described Hamblett’s rise at the Journal “from advertising department clerk to publisher in a career fueled by qualities for which he became famous ó quick wit, dedication to excellence, warmth, good humor, passion for his community and deep-seated belief in the wonder of newspapers.

“During his leadership, The Providence Journal prospered financially and journalistically, the two most fundamental measures of a newspaperís success,” according to the biography.

More about Hamblett, the award, and NEFAC can be found at www.nefac.org.

Dean Shalhoup may be reached at 594-1256 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.