McCormick Recognizes Next Generation of Student Journalists

More than 300 student journalists from around the city were rewarded for outstanding work at their high school media outlets by the McCormick Foundation and the Scholastic Press Association of Chicago on March 16.

The event, held at Roosevelt University and the Chicago Cultural Center, included a series of awards to the teens and their respective print and online newspapers. Among the awards were the winner for overall layout, overall newspaper, community story, entertainment story and Journalist of the Year, which came with a $1,500 scholarship.

The 20^th annual ceremony also included workshops by professional journalists on issues such as hyperlocal reporting, newspaper design and generating story ideas. A workshop by Maura Hernandez of the Chicago Tribune highlighted the use of various digital tools, such as networking social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Storify, to enhance articles. Another presentation, by Dean Miller of Stony Brook University, delved into ways in which news literacy fosters a more engaged and discerning citizenry.

A full list of the award winners can be found here.

Congratulations to all of the participating schools and journalists, including Diana Rosen of Whitney Young who won the award for Journalist of the Year.

Check out video from the event featuring some of the student participants:

For more information on other Scholastic Press Association events, visit: http://spac-chicago.blogspot.com/

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Hats off to Chicago’s Best Student Journalists

We were very excited to host the McCormick Foundation High School Media Awards this past Friday, where the best high school journalism in the Chicago area was recognized. The luncheon at the Chicago Cultural Center honored 12 schools in 24 categories. Lane Tech College Prep High School won the most awards, and Mike Stanton of Whitney Young Magnet High School was named High School Journalist of the Year. For the first time in the event’s 19-year history, two principals were acknowledged for their leadership in protecting and defending press freedoms. Prior to the awards luncheon, the morning featured dozens of workshops for the HS journalists, with presenters from a variety of media and topics ranging from "hunting for good stories" to "making your blog buzz."

The Scholastic Press Association of Chicago, which is based at Roosevelt University, coordinated the event.

For a list of all the winners, click here.

Check out an interview with one of the 2011 principals of the year, Juan Carlos Ocon, principal of Benito Juarez Community Academy.

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Now Accepting Nominations for Journalism Principal of the Year

Roosevelt University, as part of their annual celebration of high school journalism from throughout the city of Chicago, will be awarding a first-ever award to the Principal of the Year. The idea is to honor a Principal who really celebrates and supports youth-produced journalism. To nominate a principal, see our guidelines here. 
Click here for more information on the 2011 Roosevelt-McCormick Media Awards. 

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Wanted: Chicago’s Best High School Journalists

The Scholastic Press Association of Chicago and the McCormick Foundation are teaming up once again to honor Chicago’s best high school journalists. The annual journalism workshop and awards ceremony will be held on April 15, 2011 at the Chicago Cultural Center. Register now and submit your students’ entries for a chance to compete in dozens of categories. The top student journalists will receive a $1,500 scholarship. Applications are due on Feb. 19. For registration information on The Scholastic Press Association of Chicago /McCormick Foundation High Schools Media Awards , visit http://spac-chicago.blogspot.com/

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2010 High School Media Awards Announcement

Take a moment to check out the McCormick Foundation 2010 High School Media Awards announcements. The winners were announced March 18, 2010 at the 18th Annual Scholastic Press Association's Chicago conference. Thirteen Chicago high schools participated in this year’s conference. The competition highlights some of the best Chicagoland high school newspapers, news websites, articles, photos, drawings and graphics.

Congratulations to all the participants for putting forth their best work!

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McCormick Foundation Awards $50,000 Grant To Youth Media Los Angeles Collaborative

The McCormick Foundation has awarded a $50,000 grant to the Youth News Service L.A. Bureau to support the Youth Media Los Angeles Collaborative (YMLAC).

“We are excited and honored to receive this prestigious grant,” said Linda Bowen, project manager of the YMLAC and assistant professor of journalism at California State University, Northridge.

The YMLAC is a citywide group of youth media organizations and individuals dedicated to training young people in producing journalism across multimedia platforms. Initially, the collaborative will coordinate the various youth journalism and media programs and organizations throughout the greater Los Angeles region and create an online database of youth media and student journalism programs.

“The idea is to create a networking foundation and Web-based interactive resource that can bring these diverse groups and individuals together to help young people become and stay interested in journalism,” Bowen added. “Fostering civic engagement and news media literacy are critical project components.”

Ultimately, the collaborative will connect youth media producers and young journalists to a broad network of mentors – from university students, educators and professional journalists to non-profit agency trainers and members of advocacy and literacy organizations. Eventually, professionals and students could be geographically matched.

“McCormick-funded research shows that students who study journalism do better
academically,” said Clark Bell, McCormick Foundation Journalism Program director. “By
fostering collaboration among student media organizations, we can expand the network of
journalism opportunities for Los Angeles youth.”

The YMLAC is intended to serve as a model for organizations throughout the country seeking to improve the state of journalism by sharing resources, cultivating journalism skills and promoting First Amendment rights.

The McCormick Foundation’s Journalism Program invests in projects that enhance content, build news audiences and protect the rights of journalists. The Chicago-based Foundation believes nothing is more critical to the vitality of a democracy than a free, vigorous and diverse news media, providing citizens the information they need to make reasoned decisions. This mission furthers the Foundation's overall commitment to children, communities.

CONTACT:
Linda Bowen
Office: (818) 677-3238
Email: linda.s.bowen@csun.edu

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Scholastic Press Association of Chicago-McCormick Foundation High School Media Awards

We’re looking forward to recognizing this year’s winning student journalists at tomorrow’s annual High School Media Awards. And for all those high school journalism advisers, we’ve prepared a list of resources below. We’re eager to hear what your needs are, so let us know how we can help.  

McCormick-Roosevelt Mini Tech Grants for Educators

Learn how to apply for a tech grant:

http://mccormickmediamatters.blogspot.com/2009/10/announcement-technology-mini-grants-for.html

News Literacy

Learn about the the latest news literacy initiatives and resources.

http://www.thenewsliteracyproject.org/

http://www.highschooljournalism.org/teachers/teachers.cfm?id=206

Chicago Youth Voices Network

Stay up to date with CYVN’s youth polling and reporting project—NUF SAID.

http://nuf-said.org/

McCormick Foundation Journalism Program

Stay in touch with the Journalism program in the following ways:

Web site: http://www.mccormickfoundation.org/journalism/journalism.aspx

Blog: http://mccormickmediamatters.blogspot.com/

Twitter: http://twitter.com/McCormickJrnlsm

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/McCormickJournalism

Other resources:

Youth Media Reporter

http://youthmediareporter.org/

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Other Award & Fellowship Opportunities

The Journalism Program comes across many awards and fellowship opportunities for working professionals and organizations. On this page, we will periodically share a list of prospects. We hope that you will submit your best work for consideration to our partners and friends.

If you have an opportunity you'd like to share, please send us an e-mail with more information.

 July 2010

• Applications are now being accepted for the 2010 Dart Center Ochberg Fellowships, a unique seminar program for mid-career journalists who want to deepen their knowledge of emotional trauma and improve coverage of violence, conflict and tragedy. Applications are due by July 21, 2010. Click here for more information.

Year Long

• Chicago Headline Club is accepting nominations for their Watchdog Award, which honors Chicago area news reporting that calls attention to situations in which the public is being harmed or poorly served. Sponsored by the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, the CHC each year awards a cash prize for enterprising journalism that defends and protects everyday folks.The prize for work completed in 2009 will be $1,500 and will be presented on April 23, 2010 at the Chicago Headline Club's Lisagor Awards banquet. Do you have something to enter? Click here.
  

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New Year Ushers in Journalism Awards Deadlines

It’s actually not too late to add one more New Year’s resolution to your list: To submit your best work for consideration of journalism awards. Why not give it a try? After all, there’s nothing wrong with a little fame and fortune!

Thanks to San Francisco-based New America Media, here is a list of some upcoming deadlines of note:
Grantham Prize 2010: This prize honors outstanding coverage of the environment
Book deadline: Jan. 11, 2010
Other entries deadline: Feb. 1, 2010
For more information, click here

SPJ’s New America Award Competition: This prize honors public service journalism on issues of importance to immigrant or ethnic communities
Deadline: Feb. 12, 2010
For more information, click here

Dart Awards for Excellence in Coverage of Trauma: This award honors exemplary journalism on the impact of violence, crime, disaster and other traumatic events on individuals, families and communities
Deadline: Jan. 29, 2010
For more information, click here

Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards: The awards honor reporting on issues that reflect Kennedy’s concerns including human rights, social justice and the power of individual action in the U.S. and around the world
Deadline: Feb. 1, 2010
For more information, click here

Peter Lisagor Awards: The Chicago Headline Club, the largest Society of Professional Journalists chapter in the country, established the Peter Lisagor Awards in 1977 to inspire Chicago-area journalists to follow Lisagor's outstanding example and to recognize truly superior contributions to journalism. Founded as Sigma Delta Chi in 1909, the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) is widely acknowledged as the voice of journalism and a leader in recognizing members of the profession for outstanding achievement.
Deadline: Feb. 5, 2010
Fore more information, click here.

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Deadline for NAHJ Contest Submissions

Leadership, Emerging Journalist, Student Journalist, Print, Broadcast and Photojournalist of the Year... these are just some of the categories for the National Association of Hispanic Journalists' DC Noche de Triunfos awards. The award program will be held Sept. 17 in Washington, DC. If you are a Hispanic journalist or want to encourage a friend to enter, the deadline for submissions has been extended to June 1.

Click here for more information and guidelines: http://www.nahj.org/awards/2009/2009awards.shtml

To see the list of winners from last year, click here: http://www.nahj.org/sponsorship/specialevents/2008/noche/08awardwinners.shtml

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NYCMA Posts Ippies Awards

They range from analysis of those most affected by foreclosure to the compelling profile of a multi-ethnic softball league, a piece on being Sikh in America to a photo essay on train travel in India. The winning entries from the New York Community Media Alliance’s 2008 Ippies Awards are now online. As a group, these stories personalize the immigrant experience in compelling and nuanced ways. Click here (http://www.indypressny.org/ippies2008winner.php3) to view all of the winning entries.

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We Media Game Changers Awards Winners

Online media star ZeFrank, mobile texting service Twitter, Obama campaign mastermind David Plouffe, Japanese digital designer Yugo Nakamura and Kenyan mobile alert service Ushahidi are among nine winners of the We Media Game Changers Awards. The awards, organized and administered by iFOCOS, a media think tank and futures lab, will be given out at the We Media Miami conference Feb. 24-26. Other award winners are The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Innocentive’s crowdsourcing for the science crowd, Humana’s Freewheelin’ and social network Socialvibe.

We Media defines Game Changers as entities that ‘lead society to knowledge.’ It invited entries from ‘big companies, little startups, social entrepreneurs, independent thinkers, brands, causes, tools, ideas, commercial, nonprofit – all were welcome.’ To learn more about the MF-sponsored awards and the winners, click here.

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NYCMA Announces 2008 Ippies Awards

The New York Community Media Alliance (NYCMA) announced the 28 winners of the 2008 Ippies Awards for ethnic and community press in New York City on Friday, Dec. 5 at Baruch College. Established in 2001, the Awards recognized excellent journalism chosen from more than 170 entries, in categories covering: investigative reporting; feature writing, editorial or commentary; coverage of immigrant, racial or social issues; coverage of labor; election coverage; overall design and photography.

To see more about the awards and winning articles and photo essays, click here.

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Kudos to Fernando Diaz of The Chicago Reporter

The Chicago Reporter’s Fernando Diaz has been awarded the 2008 Emerging Journalist of the Year by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. He will be honored at the NAHJ’s 23rd annual Noche de Triunfos Journalism Awards Gala Sept. 12 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

Among the reasons Diaz was selected were his “desire to converge to other media platforms, develop the magazine’s Internet coverage, adapt stories for Spanish-language television and uncover information that the entire community should know,” according to a letter by Iván Román, executive director of the association.

Diaz, 29, has worked at the Reporter – an investigative monthly magazine that identifies, analyzes and reports on the social, economic and political issues facing metropolitan Chicago - since October covering issues of immigration, criminal justice, and government and politics. In just 10 months he has produced projects:
• Documenting the burden families face in staying connected to relatives at faraway Illinois prisons
• The challenges threatening the state’s plan to integrate immigrants
• The success and failures suburban municipalities face in adapting to a growing immigrant population.

Along with his work at the Reporter, Diaz is currently a Fellow with the Institute for Justice and Journalism at the University of Southern California Annenberg School of Communication, working on a story about immigrants in the military. This MF-funded program allowed 10 reporters covering immigration and their editors to attend intensive training and site visits to the U.S.-Mexico border, Los Angeles and New York City.

For more on Diaz and his prestigious award, go to http://www.chicagoreporter.com/events/index.php/item/Diaz_Named_%27Emerging_Journalist_of_the_Year%27.

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First Place for the First

The Illinois First Amendment Center, an MF grantee since its origins in 2001, is taking home a highly-coveted First Amendment Award from the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ). The award recognizes individuals and groups for "extraordinarily strong efforts to preserve and strengthen the First Amendment . " SPJ will also honor former USA Today reporter Toni Locy , who has refused to reveal her sources from stories in a 2002 anthrax case.

IFAC works to educate young people about the need to understand, preserve and protect the First Amendment. What started as a modest effort housed at the Illinois Press Foundation has grown into a booming non-profit organization, providing free curriculum, posters, videos and other materials to thousands of K-12 teachers across the country. It recently began offering its materials in Spanish as well. The Center works closely with newspapers to promote its materials and host an annual conference.

IFAC will pick up the honor at SPJ's annual convention, to be held Sept. 6 in Atlanta. For more, visit: http://www.spj.org/news.asp?REF=819#819

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