Four journalists who revealed the National Security Agency’s vast electronic data mining operation were among the winners of the George Polk Awards in Journalism for 2013, announced on Sunday by Long Island University, which administers the prizes.

In all, 30 reporters representing 15 news organizations were recognized in 13 categories. Reporters from The New York Times won three of the awards, as did reporters from The Washington Post.

“In the tradition of George Polk, many of the journalists we have recognized did more than report news,” said John Darnton, the curator of the Polk Awards, referring to the CBS News correspondent who was killed while covering the civil war in Greece in 1948. “They heightened public awareness with perceptive detection and dogged pursuit of stories that otherwise would not have seen the light of day.”

The four winners who disclosed the N.S.A. surveillance were Glenn Greenwald, Ewen MacAskill and Laura Poitras of The Guardian and Barton Gellman of The Washington Post. Their articles, which won the Polk Award for national security reporting, were based on documents leaked by the former N.S.A. contractor Edward J. Snowden.