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TNG-CWA Freedom Award Fund Honors Journalism's Best
A professor and students whose work has freed wrongly convicted death row inmates in Illinois, a Sacramento reporter who chronicled a tidy neighborhood's collapse into a dangerous slum and two exceptional student writers were honored in May with The Newspaper Guild-CWA's top awards for journalistic excellence.
The Herbert Block, Heywood Broun and David S. Barr awards were presented at the second annual Freedom Award Fund banquet in Washington, D.C.
"When we honor these winners tonight, we honor the entire profession of journalism and those who toil on behalf of an informed citizenry," CWA President Morton Bahr said, calling reporters "the difference between a Democratic society and what it would otherwise be."
The Block award is named for Herblock, the late Washington Post editorial cartoonist who for more than five decades used his pen to urge compassion for the powerless and unmask the arrogance of the powerful.
Washington Post reporter and columnist David Broder shared memories of Block with the audience, remembering his kindness, idealism and devotion to fighting injustice. "Herb woke up every morning with a fresh dose of righteous indignation," Broder said.
This year's Block award was given to Northwestern University Professor David Protess and his Medill School of Journalism students for the "Innocence Project." Their dogged research and investigative reporting has freed six innocent men who were facing execution in Illinois and was a key factor in the January decision by then-Gov. George Ryan to commute the sentences of more than 150 of the state's death-row prisoners.
Four students and the Medill dean attended the banquet. Protess was unable to be there but sent a video saying the award honored not just the Innocence Project but the men who were wrongly imprisoned, as well as one man who was executed in spite of evidence students found to exonerate him.
The Heywood Broun award, named for the crusading columnist who founded The Newspaper Guild, was presented to Sacramento Bee newspaper reporter Andy Furillo. His investigation of the substandard housing project Franklin Villa - once a thriving community - led the Sacramento City Council to take over the property.
Furillo said he was "unbelievably humbled" to receive the award, which annually draws entries from the best of investigative journalism. Winners of both the Broun and Block awards receive $5,000.
Two other Broun entries received Awards of Substantial Distinction." One went to a team of reporters at the Winston-Salem Journal in North Carolina for unearthing the state's history of sterilization of people deemed "unfit," from epileptics to the mentally ill to women labeled "promiscuous."
The second award went to the youngest Broun honoree ever, high school radio journalist Jaimita Haskell. Her piece, called "Tracking," was a first-person account of how she was bumped out of an overcrowded academic program then used "my mike and my mouth" to get back in. Both distinction awards came with $1,000 checks.
The David S. Barr awards, named in memory of the Guild's former general counsel and mentor, are given annually to one high school and one college student whose work promotes issues of importance to working people and contributes to the pursuit of justice and fairness.
Sarah Waites Elkins of the Holton Arms School in Bethesda, Md., won the $500 high school award for her editorial titled "The Fair Weather Flag Wavers," exploring the sudden surge in patriotism among teenagers after Sept. 11 and questioning its authenticity.
A $1,500 college scholarship was awarded to Katherine Peters, a student at Spring Hill College in Mobile, Ala., from a series of articles on fair trade and the global coffee industry. Her winning entry reported on the plight of coffee farmers and the failure of the once-profitable crop to provide for basic family needs.
More than 250 people attended the banquet, which was emceed by National Public Radio host Bob Edwards and opened with a video welcome from Walter Cronkite, an early Guild activist during his days as a United Press International correspondent in the 1940s.
The Herbert Block, Heywood Broun and David S. Barr awards were presented at the second annual Freedom Award Fund banquet in Washington, D.C.
"When we honor these winners tonight, we honor the entire profession of journalism and those who toil on behalf of an informed citizenry," CWA President Morton Bahr said, calling reporters "the difference between a Democratic society and what it would otherwise be."
The Block award is named for Herblock, the late Washington Post editorial cartoonist who for more than five decades used his pen to urge compassion for the powerless and unmask the arrogance of the powerful.
Washington Post reporter and columnist David Broder shared memories of Block with the audience, remembering his kindness, idealism and devotion to fighting injustice. "Herb woke up every morning with a fresh dose of righteous indignation," Broder said.
This year's Block award was given to Northwestern University Professor David Protess and his Medill School of Journalism students for the "Innocence Project." Their dogged research and investigative reporting has freed six innocent men who were facing execution in Illinois and was a key factor in the January decision by then-Gov. George Ryan to commute the sentences of more than 150 of the state's death-row prisoners.
Four students and the Medill dean attended the banquet. Protess was unable to be there but sent a video saying the award honored not just the Innocence Project but the men who were wrongly imprisoned, as well as one man who was executed in spite of evidence students found to exonerate him.
The Heywood Broun award, named for the crusading columnist who founded The Newspaper Guild, was presented to Sacramento Bee newspaper reporter Andy Furillo. His investigation of the substandard housing project Franklin Villa - once a thriving community - led the Sacramento City Council to take over the property.
Furillo said he was "unbelievably humbled" to receive the award, which annually draws entries from the best of investigative journalism. Winners of both the Broun and Block awards receive $5,000.
Two other Broun entries received Awards of Substantial Distinction." One went to a team of reporters at the Winston-Salem Journal in North Carolina for unearthing the state's history of sterilization of people deemed "unfit," from epileptics to the mentally ill to women labeled "promiscuous."
The second award went to the youngest Broun honoree ever, high school radio journalist Jaimita Haskell. Her piece, called "Tracking," was a first-person account of how she was bumped out of an overcrowded academic program then used "my mike and my mouth" to get back in. Both distinction awards came with $1,000 checks.
The David S. Barr awards, named in memory of the Guild's former general counsel and mentor, are given annually to one high school and one college student whose work promotes issues of importance to working people and contributes to the pursuit of justice and fairness.
Sarah Waites Elkins of the Holton Arms School in Bethesda, Md., won the $500 high school award for her editorial titled "The Fair Weather Flag Wavers," exploring the sudden surge in patriotism among teenagers after Sept. 11 and questioning its authenticity.
A $1,500 college scholarship was awarded to Katherine Peters, a student at Spring Hill College in Mobile, Ala., from a series of articles on fair trade and the global coffee industry. Her winning entry reported on the plight of coffee farmers and the failure of the once-profitable crop to provide for basic family needs.
More than 250 people attended the banquet, which was emceed by National Public Radio host Bob Edwards and opened with a video welcome from Walter Cronkite, an early Guild activist during his days as a United Press International correspondent in the 1940s.