If it's really a "top journalism prize" you don't need to call it "top journalism prize". You just call it by name. Like "Pulitzer Prize". Which he deserves.

Based on the definition of the award, it's all but impossible to think of anyone who even came close to deserving it!

Definition: "…celebrates journalism that challenges secrecy and mendacity in public affairs and raises ‘forgotten’ issues of public importance, without fear or favor, working against the grain of government spin"

Presumably because he was a former computer hacker and of course the fact that it is a high tech website which uses unique and technologically advanced methods to discover new information and keep the identity of sources secret.

Because wikileaks represents using the disruptive power of the internet to transform the very fundamental conceptions of government transparency and of journalism.

That's very relevant to internet business folks and to hackers.