Student-powered news outlets at Newmark J-School have racked up 11 national journalism awards in recent weeks — including top honors for ambitious special reports detailing challenges facing migrants and public school students in New York.
“Hard Lessons,” a NYCity News Service cross-class effort that tackled the school system’s struggle to rebound from the pandemic, earned the Shaufler Prize in Journalism, bestowed by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University. The Shaufler awards recognize the best journalism in the country advancing the understanding of issues related to underserved people, such as communities of color, immigrants, LGBTQ+ and those with disabilities.
Anacaona Rodriguez Martinez ‘22 and Safiyah Riddle ‘23, who were among the contributors to the project, accepted the award on March 26, along with Esha Ray, a lecturer at J-School. All three participated in a panel discussion, moderated by alumna Angela Hill ‘07, now a Cronkite professor, at the school’s Phoenix campus.
Ray co-led Hard Lessons, along with faculty member Jessica Machado, as part of their Editing the News class. A subsequent edition of the class, with Machado at the helm, produced another award-winning cross-class effort for the NYCity News Service: “The Newest New Yorkers,” a look at the uphill climb facing migrants in New York, which won the first-place College Media Association Apple Award in the Crisis Reporting category.
The Apple awards, announced March 16 at CMA’s annual New York conference, brought additional kudos for the J-School:
- Queens Street Name Stories, a NYCity News Service special report that delves into the tales behind the byways rechristened in honor of some local heroes, came in second for Best Multimedia Package.
- New Yorkers in Pursuit of Change, the final 2023 edition of AudioFiles, earned second-place honors in the Best Podcast category.
- The NYCity News Service finished second for Best News Website.
Earlier this year, Newark J-School outlets took home several awards in the Associated Collegiate Press’ national Clips & Clicks competition for work produced during the Fall 2023 semester:
- Sonja Anderson’s News Service video Empowerment on Eight Wheels garnered first place honors for Broadcast Sports Story, while Naoufal Enhari and Ebony Prescod finished second in the same category for Going to New Lengths: Swimmer Sets Hudson River Record.
- Enhari and Brianna Knibbs’ News Service video Anti-Arab Rhetoric on the Rise took second place for Broadcast News Story.
- This image from Cris Seda Chabrier’s News Service photo essay Faces of Protest received the third-place award for News Photo.
- Natalie Robbins’s News Service story, There’s Power in Being Onstage: Clown Finds Calling, and Dashiell Allen’s Garifuna Entrepreneurs Make Their Mark, part of the South Bronx Businesses Battle Back project, both collected honorable mentions in the Feature Story category.
