WATERVILLE – Atlanta newspaper columnist and editor Cynthia Tucker will be honored by Colby College this weekend with an award named for America’s first martyr for freedom of the press.

Tucker, editorial page editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, is this year’s recipient of the private, liberal arts college’s Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award. She will receive an honorary doctor of laws degree before speaking during a formal convocation Sunday evening.

In addition to editing the Journal-Constitution’s editorial page, Tucker is a syndicated columnist and appears as a commentator on television.

Tucker has covered local governments, national politics, crime and education as a reporter, and filed stories from Africa, Central America and Cuba, Colby said.

“Cynthia is one of the nation’s most skillful editorial writers and commentators,” said Matthew Storin, retired Boston Globe editor and chairman of the Lovejoy Selection Committee.

The award honors “the courage and fortitude [Tucker] has shown in never taking the easy or predictable path – sometimes, I’m sure, at the cost of personal relationships and feeling lots of heat,” Storin said.

The selection committee called Tucker “an equal opportunity social critic” who guides editorial polices on matters from foreign policy to political races.

Tucker won the American Society of Newspaper Editors’ Distinguished Writing Award in 2000, and in 2004 she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for commentary.