Matthew Winkler, editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News, received the Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism while Leonard Tow, a pioneer in the cable television industry, was the first recipient of the Distinguished Service to New York Award.

The event also honored three alumni from the recently graduated Class of 2011: Alva French received the Dean’s Award, Nadia Sussman won the Sidney Hillman Foundation Award for Social Justice Reporting, and Patrick Clark captured the Frederic Wiegold Award for Business Journalism.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who hired Winkler from The Wall Street Journal in 1990 to start a news wire for Bloomberg’s growing business information company, introduced his longtime associate and friend. He called Winkler “someone who has reshaped the entire industry of business journalism” and “a visionary leader, a brilliant journalist, and an outstanding editor.”

In his lead-up to Tow, CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein named some of the organizations the philanthropist has supported with gifts of millions of dollars, including the CUNY J-School’s Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism, the Columbia University Medical Center, the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the new Claire Tow Theater at Lincoln Center, and a performing arts center at Brooklyn College. “His giving is strategic, directed as to have the most impact,” Goldstein said. “Leonard believes as I do in the power of leverage. He likes to challenge others, stimulate them to aim high and drive forward, and make a difference.”

Dean Stephen B. Shepard praised Winkler for bringing “traditional journalism into the digital age,” and he called Tow “one of the great unsung philanthropists in New York history.”

The award supports a work of journalism in any medium on significant underreported subjects in the public interest. As the 2012 Reporting Award recipient, Armstrong will continue her coverage of sexual violence in Haiti, which has increased threefold since the January 2010 earthquake.

In establishing the award in 2009, the Carter Journalism Institute’s faculty cited the need for encouraging enterprise journalism during a time of extensive layoffs and budget cuts throughout the journalism industry. The American Society of Newspaper Editors, for example, reports that the number of news professionals at newspapers is down nearly 30 percent from its peak a decade ago.

The award includes a stipend of $2,500 upon selection as the competition winner and an additional $10,000 upon timely completion and submission of the work, provided the Institute’s awards committee judges the work acceptable. The winner also has use of the Institute’s facilities, including an office, as well as NYU’s libraries and other scholarly resources. In addition, the program funds up to $6,000 in NYU journalism graduate student assistance. The Institute will publish the completed work either alone or in partnership with another media outlet.

Armstrong grew up in Nairobi, Kenya and has worked in Ethiopia, India, Zimbabwe, Tajikistan, and elsewhere primarily writing stories about humanitarian issues. She has written about teenage prostitution in displaced persons camps in Haiti and former child soldiers in Liberia. She won an award from the American Society of Journalists and Authors for an article about a Kenyan village formed by women who were allegedly raped by British soldiers—and subsequently banished by their husbands.

In February 2010, Armstrong received a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting for a yearlong reporting project in Haiti. Her articles were published in USA Today and on the Atlantic.com, NYTimes.com, and the Daily Beast. She was also featured on NPR and the BBC, discussing rape in the camps and the spread of HIV after the earthquake. Armstrong and her Pulitzer Center colleagues were awarded the 2010 National Press Club’s Joan Friedenberg Award for Online Journalism for their work in Haiti. Her story in the January 2011 issue of Essence about Haitian women who were fighting back against rape and violence won an award for “articles that make a difference” from the American Society of Journalists and Authors.

Sarah Stillman, the inaugural recipient of the Reporting Award, traveled to Iraq and Afghanistan to report on the abuse of third-world service workers on U.S. military bases there. Her piece, “The Invisible Army,” which appeared in the June 6, 2011 issue of The New Yorker, won several of journalism’s top prizes in 2012: the National Magazine Award in the category of “Public Interest”; the Hillman Prize for Magazine Journalism; the Overseas Press Club’s Joe and Laurie Dine Award for International Human Rights Reporting; and the Michael Kelly Award for the “fearless pursuit and expression of truth.

Submitted by New York University

Damian Ghigliotty from the Class of ’08 and Joseph Walker, ’09, were part of the team at Dow Jones’s FINS career site that captured the prize for jobs coverage in the Internet Consumer Reporting category.

A picture taken by Ben Fractenberg, ’09, for DNAinfo.com was voted the best Internet Feature Photo. It showed a vigil held for 16-year-old Tysha Jones, who was killed in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn.

The Internet Spot News award went to Andrea Swalec, ’10, and her colleagues from DNAinfo.com for their coverage of Hurricane Irene in August 2011.

More than 400 entries in over 20 categories of reporting were submitted by New York area news organizations and individual journalists for the NYPC’s 2012 contest.

It takes more than good sources and writing chops to make it as a freelancer in radio. To pay the bills without a boss, you need strategy, time management skills, smart pitches, good contacts, and an eye for opportunity. In this video, two successful radio freelancers explain how they mix and match media, topics, and beats to deliver the goods. Also, two seasoned editors discuss what they look for in a story and the storyteller and take live pitches from graduate students at the CUNY J-School.

Panelists:

Alex Goldmark (moderator) has served several roles at WNYC – New York Public Radio, including senior Producer, reporter, and editor. Before that, he was an executive producer of two shows at Air America Radio. He has reported locally and internationally on business, social enterprise, arts, technology, justice, and media for over a dozen radio programs, including NPR’s “Morning Edition,” “On The Media,” and APM’s “Marketplace.” He writes for such publications as Fast Company and GOOD magazine.

David Krasnow is the senior editor of “Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen,” public radio’s weekly national program on the arts and pop culture. As an editor and writer, he has worked in various media covering music, art, design, land use, history, science, and health care. Formerly the reviews editor of Artforum, he has contributed to the Village Voice, Jazz Times, Metropolis, The New York Observer, and The Wire, and remains a contributing editor for Bomb. He teaches radio writing to print journalists at Mediabistro and has appeared as a panelist at the Third Coast International Audio Festival and the Public Radio Program Directors conference. He began filing for “Studio 360″ with a profile of experimental musician Pauline Oliveros and joined the staff in 2003. For the program’s American Icons series, he produced features on Andy Warhol’s soup cans, the folk ballad “John Henry,” and Jimi Hendrix’s “Star-Spangled Banner.” He was first on air at age 17 on his college station, WESU.

Monica Miller works as a freelance reporter covering current events, politics, and breaking news for various news organizations across New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Her work has been heard on CBS Radio, NPR, WHYY, WBGO, WABC, and WOR. She has also worked as a reporter for the largest 24-hour television news network in the region, News 12 New Jersey, and written for the Philadelphia Inquirer and The Times of Trenton. In 2003, Monica produced the two-part series, “Jazz Under the Nazi Regime” which won her regional awards for Best Radio News Series. Monica was also honored by the North Hudson Islamic Educational Center and the Muslim and Arab Communities of New Jersey for her work covering the Islamic community after the 9/11 attacks.

Julie Snyder is the senior producer at Public Radio International and WBEZ’s “This American Life.” That means she’s in charge of finding material for the program. Hundreds of people wrote to the show after hearing her story about battling the phone company in episode 253. Before joining “This American Life,” she was a reporter for WGN radio in Chicago, and was news director at KZSC, Santa Cruz’s public radio station.

Yoruba Richen

She recently won a $10,000 Creative Promise Award from Tribeca All Access, which supports filmmakers from underrepresented groups.

This honor comes on the heels of Richen’s selection as a 2012 Guggenheim Fellow, for which she was awarded $50,000 .

Richen, who teaches Video Documentary and International Reporting at the CUNY J-School, has also received grants from Sundance Documentary Fund, Frameline, Jerome Foundation, Chicken & Egg Pictures, the Robert Giard Foundation, and the CUNY Diversity Fund.

“The New Black” is scheduled for release early in 2013.

Damian Lopez Alfonso

Her piece for The New York Times website, Damian’s Ride, tells the story of Damian Lopez Alfonso, a world class cyclist who was severely disfigured and lost his forearms in a childhood accident in Cuba and is now training to compete in the 2012 Paralympics in London this summer.

CUNY J-School video journalism instructor Bob Sacha called Toral “a star pupil” in his Video Storytelling for the Web class.

Smock will teach visual storytelling techniques. He and the Small World News team will work with a variety of broadcast journalists and new outlets in Tripoli and several other cities throughout Libya. Qatar-based DOHA Centre for Media Freedom awarded Small World News a grant for the project.

Smock has done similar election coverage training in Egypt, Cambodia, and Afghanistan.

By Justin Mitchell
Class of 2012

Saturday, Apr. 28 was a different kind of day at Chelsea’s la Taza de Oro diner. The homey Puerto Rican eatery was the subject of an innovative project for Jesse Hardman’s Audio Writing & Reporting class, modeled on “24 Hours at the Golden Apple,” an episode of the popular public radio program “This American Life.”

The original broadcast consisted of a series of conversations and profiles at a diner in Chicago over the course of an entire day. Hardman’s class covered a 5 a.m.-11 p.m. shift at la Taza de Oro, with groups of two students taking three-hour shifts interviewing customers, employees, deliverymen, and managers as they went about another day.

Students were not sure what to expect. “When I first started talking to people, I was extremely nervous,” said Oulimata Ba of the Class of 2012. “I honestly expected to get a lot of no’s, and I also felt weird about interrupting people during their meals.”

“It was interesting,” said classmate Rebecca Sesny. “Some people wanted to open up right away, but many people I talked to didn’t really want to open up. It took a lot of prodding.”

As they dug into the experiment, many students encountered interesting, idiosyncratic, and one-of-a-kind people. “I spoke to a gay couple, one of whom was living with HIV. He’d spent the past year in and out of the hospital and had finally been given a place to stay through HASA [the HIV/AIDS Services Administration],” said Kizzy Cox. “Through it all, his boyfriend of only two years stayed by his side. Through tears, Willie — the man living with HIV — expressed gratitude and wished he could ‘pay him back.’ His boyfriend responded that he already paid him back with ‘his company, his smile.’”

For many, it was an overwhelming experience. “I was pretty astounded at how wiped I was after my shift,” said Tom DiChristopher. “I didn’t really feel it in the moment, but afterwards, I was somewhat overwhelmed with all the information I had just taken in.”

Hardman envisioned the project as a way of teaching his students to pay closer attention to their subjects. “I think in modern media we’re often in a rush to get a concise, packaged comment from people that fits nicely into our reporting. But in reality, normal people don’t speak in soundbites,” he said. “So having to sit at a diner, and just listen for three hours is a really important exercise. It teaches us as reporters to invest in peoples’ thoughts and experiences, and to not be in such a hurry.”

Tristan Hallman pulled one memorable audio excerpt from his recordings.

Eric and Mark, two Mormons-turned-atheists, waxed philosophical about life and their attempts to find their way in the world. In search of a stable job when he graduated from Brigham Young University, Eric went into Teach for America and was placed in Arkansas. His best friend Mark went the opposite, less stable route — graduate school for art. After a day around the city, they took time to reflect on life as they sipped café con leches at la Taza de Oro.

Students will produce an hour-long radio program from their recordings. Stay tuned for information on where it will air, and when you can hear it.

April brought us a shower of stories. Check out some of the latest news from our reporters:

•Peter Moskowitz’s article about a woman’s very personal fight against budget cuts made The New York Times.

•Anika Anand and Kenneth Christensen covered the Earth Fest celebration at St. Mary’s Park for the Mott Haven Herald.

•Our reporters have been all over the Daily News: Jacob Hodes broke news of a probation office planned for Harlem. Patricia Rey Mallen reported on plans for a coffee shop set to replace a cafe that closed after owner’s murder. Kamana Shrestha wrote about a pole dancing gym in Harlem. Colin Weatherby dug into a child abuse murder and uncovered some important new information.

•Menglin Huang’s story about how some businesses got buried by a mild winter found a home in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

•Elbert Chu, working for The New York Times’ SchoolBook blog, reported on a charter school with a lottery process that gives special consideration to children with high needs.

•The latest from The Local includes posts by, among others, Erin Horan, Joe Stepansky, Linda Villarosa and Kyle McGovern.

Our Alumni Corner is particularly crowded this week:

•Eliot Caroom posted a timely piece – pegged to Tax Day and the Pulitzers – on The Daily Beast about the IRS and “The Pale King” by the late David Foster Wallace.

•Danny Gold is up for a Mirror Award for his article for the The Awl about a website that publishes anonymously-submitted nude photos.

•Patrick Hickey Jr. wrote about the Olympics  for NBC Local Integrated Media.

•Judy Le’s story for WMAZ-TV about a 6-year-old girl handcuffed by Georgia cops got huge pick-up.

•Musikilu Mojeed landed a slot as an International John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University for the 2012-13 academic year.

•Collin Orcutt’s SI.com video about a troubled hockey player making a personal comeback is up for a Webby Award in the Online Film and Video, Sports Category.

•Hannah Rappleye and Lisa Riordan Seville’s story about a Georgia town’s dependence on an immigration detention center made The Nation.

•Kevin Sheehan scored second place honors for Best Sports Feature at this year’s New York Press Association Awards for his takeout on offbeat athletic endeavors in Lower Manhattan.

Congrats to all — and keep ‘em coming!

Cheers,
Jere