Author: Belinda Clarke

Medill Alums Win 2020 Pulitzer Prizes – Individual and Teams

Post author By Belinda Clarke
Post date May 5, 2020
No Comments on Medill Alums Win 2020 Pulitzer Prizes – Individual and Teams

Congratulations to Medill alumnus Brian M. Rosenthal (BSJ11) of The New York Times on receiving the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting for his work on the New York City taxi industry. His reporting found that drivers had been the victim of predatory lending resulting in nearly a thousand bankruptcies and several suicides. His series has led to the proposal of a $500 million bailout for drivers.

Rosenthal has been an investigative reporter on the Metro desk of The New York Times since May 2017. He covered state government for The Houston Chronicle between 2014 and 2016 and for The Seattle Times between 2011 and 2013. While in Houston, he was on the team that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Public Service for a series that exposed that Texas was systematically denying special education services to tens of thousands of children with disabilities. While in Seattle, he was part of a reporting team that won the Pulitzer Prize in Breaking News for coverage of a mudslide that killed 43 people. He also has won a George A. Polk Award and the Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting.

Read Rosenthal’s comments about the win: https://www.nytco.com/press/2020-pulitzer-prize-remarks-from-brian-m-rosenthal/

In addition to Rosenthal, Evan Hill (BSJ07), a member of the New York Times Visual Investigations team, was lead reporter on a New York Times investigation into the Russian bombing of Syrian civilians that won a 2020 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting, as well as a George Polk Award for international reporting on February 19. The Pulitzer jury recognized the Visual Investigations team for two stories that proved, for the first time, that the Russian Air Force was responsible for a series of attacks on hospitals and other civilian sites in opposition-held Syria.

Andy Wolfson, (MSJ78), a reporter in Louisville at The Courier Journal, was a member of a team that won a 2020 Pulitzer for breaking news reporting for a story about hundreds of pardons issued by a lame duck governor, including for murderers, rapists and campaign supporters.

Also honored May 4 as part of a Pulitzer-winning team was Lori Montgomery (BSJ84), now deputy national editor at The Washington Post. The Post’s staff won the Pulitzer for Explanatory Reporting for a series that showed the effects of extreme temperatures to the planet (found here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/climate-environment/climate-change-america/).

Photo Credits
Rosenthal photo: Pulitzer.org
Hill photo: Evan Hill
Montgomery photo: WashingtonPost.com

2000s Class Notes Featured Class Notes

Evan Hill (BSJ07)

Evan Hill, a member of the New York Times Visual Investigations team, was lead reporter on an investigation into the Russian bombing of Syrian civilians that won a Pulitzer Prize for international reporting on May 4 and a George Polk Award for international reporting on February 19. The Pulitzer jury recognized the Visual Investigations team for two stories that proved, for the first time, that the Russian Air Force was responsible for a series of attacks on hospitals and other civilian sites in opposition-held Syria. The investigation has been cited during a United Nations Security Council meeting on Syria and during a congressional hearing on protecting civilians during armed conflict. Hill and his team relied on traditional reporting, contacting dozens of sources, and new open source techniques, such as geolocation and metadata, to carry out their investigation.

1990s Class Notes Featured Class Notes

Justin Kerr (BSJ93)

Local news publisher Justin Kerr announced that grants from the Robert R. McCormick Foundation and the Chicago Headline Club will power local journalism for the McKinley Park neighborhood of Chicago in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic. The McKinley Park News, Kerr’s micro-local news outlet that covers a single Chicago neighborhood, will use these funds to power a new journalism initiative to support the community.

“We are honored and humbled by this critical support for our publication,” Kerr said. “The pandemic has upended the already-battered news industry. This funding for Chicago journalism ensures our communities stay informed with reliable, high-quality news and information.”

The McKinley Park News is one of 48 recipients of the McCormick Foundation grant, which were awarded to both commercial and non-profit community news publications. The Chicago Headline Club disbursed grants of up to $500 each to help local journalists with their news reporting expenses.

Features Medill News

Medill News Highlights – May 2020

Post author By Belinda Clarke
Post date May 12, 2020
No Comments on Medill News Highlights – May 2020

Northwestern’s 2020 Commencement will be Virtual with Student Option to Return for On-Site Ceremony Next Year

Read the announcement by President Schapiro.

Presentation of the John Bartlow Martin award for public interest magazine journalism and conversation with winner

Join us as Medill’s Helen Gurley Brown Magazine Professor Patti Wolter presents the 2020 John Bartlow Martin Award to Lizzie Presser of ProPublica for her story “The Dispossessed.” A conversation with Presser will follow. Presser is a journalist writing about inequality and how social policy is experienced. She was previously a contributing writer at The California Sunday Magazine. “The Dispossessed,” published in partnership with ProPublica and The New Yorker, is an investigation into the unjust repossession of African American-owned property through three different legal mechanisms in North Carolina. It won a George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting in 2020. Presser has twice been a finalist for a National Magazine Award and a Livingston Award.

Medill team wins Best Article Award from American Academy of Advertising

Online retailers must strike a balance between recommending relevant items to users and providing sponsored recommendations from advertisers. Recognizing this problem, a team at Medill IMC’s Spiegel Research Center developed an algorithm that improves user utility while reducing ad revenue by a small amount. The team consisting of Professor Ed Malthouse, postdoctoral fellows Khadija Ali Vakeel and Yasaman Kamyab Hessary, research fellow Morana Fudurić and Professor Robin Burke from University of Colorado Boulder were recently recognized for their work, receiving the 2019 Best Article Award in the Journal of Advertising from the American Academy of Advertising. The award was instituted in 1988 to honor the best article published each year.

Read the abstract

NNN Wins SPJ Award

The Northwestern News Network (NNN) took first place in Best Newscast category of the Region 5 SPJ student contest and will now move on to the national SPJ competition. Joey took first place General News Reporting category for a story she did as a reporter, not as an intern, for the NBC affiliate in Bakersfield, California last summer. Region 5 comprises chapters in Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky.

Prof. Jack Doppelt Co-Produces Election Report

What began as “Can American Democracy Survive the 2020 Elections? The Role of Media, Law, Norms, and Technology in Assuring Acceptance of Election Results,” evolved to “Fair Elections During a Crisis: Urgent Recommendations in Law, Media, Politics and Tech to Advance the Legitimacy of, and the Public’s Confidence in, the November 2020 U.S. Elections. Read a New Yorker article about the report. Read the report.

Participate in the Medill Centennial Alumni Photo Gallery

We plan to feature testimonials and photos from 100+ alumni on our Centennial website, launching this summer. If you want to participate, please submit your quote and photo using this form! We would love to include you.

Lightfoot photo: WBEZ

2010s Books

The Red Movement

Shadan Kapri (MSJ13)

THE RED MOVEMENT provides a new perspective on how to combat modern-day slavery while protecting the environment.

The reality is impossible to deny any longer. Modern-day slavery is more widespread now than during the transatlantic slave trade with more people living in slave-like conditions than ever before in history. At the same time, the environment is being harmed at an unprecedented pace. These harsh realities have led to igniting THE RED MOVEMENT around the world.

The RED MOVEMENT is a global call to action of focused and deliberate change to end all forms of modern-day slavery and stop the destruction of the environment. The stunning truth is that slavery never really ended; it just changed form. People are still bought and sold in public auctions, forced to sell their bodies to survive, or work in hidden factories under unbearable conditions. Some toil away on farms and even on construction sites of some of the world’s most famous sporting events.

The forced labor of slaves can be linked back to certain toys we buy, clothes we wear, and even foods we eat. Slave labor is used in mining, and too often those basic raw materials find their way into electronics, computers, smartphones, cars, cosmetics, and even jewelry.

Slavery never stopped. It just expanded to include innocent men, women, and children from every nationality and race. Modern-day slavery, in all its various forms, is more profitable now than ever before, and its connection to the environment has remained a mystery for far too long.

We are in the midst of the greatest human rights and environmental crisis in history, and most people are completely unaware until now. Until THE RED MOVEMENT.

Books

The Talking Drum

Lisa Braxton-Reid (MSJ94)

Lisa Braxton’s debut novel has been published by Inanna Publications. The story is about three young couples and how they’re affected when an urban redevelopment project comes to their city and takes over an immigrant neighborhood in the process. The story takes place in the fictional city of Bellport, Massachusetts, on the eastern seaboard about 20 minutes north of Boston. The Talking Drum explores intra-racial, class, and cross-cultural tensions, along with the meaning of community and belonging. Examining the profound impact gentrification has on people in many neighborhoods, and the way in which being uprooted affects the fabric of their families, friendships, and emotional well-being, the novel not only focuses on the immigrant experience, but the way in which the immigrant/African American neighborhood interface leads to friction and tension.

2000s Class Notes Featured Class Notes

Bill Healy (MSJ09)

Bill Healy (MSJ09) and Alison Flowers (MSJ09) met while studying at Medill. They recently co-produced a 7-part investigative podcast called “Somebody” for the Invisible Institute, The Intercept, Topic Studios and iHeartMedia. The podcast follows the story of Courtney Copeland, who was shot and killed in Chicago in 2016. “Somebody” is narrated by Copeland’s mother, who believes police are hiding something about his death. The series explores questions of police accountability and public trust.

1970s Class Notes

Joe Robinowitz (BSJ73)

Joe Robinowitz, whose career spanned 47 years with News Corp, the last 25 as Managing Editor of The New York Post, retired on April 30, 2020. During his career with News Corp, Joe served as Editor of The Boston Herald, Editor of TV Guide magazine and Vice President / General Manager of WFXT-TV, Boston. In announcing Joe’s retirement, Rupert Murdoch, Executive Chairman of News Corp, said, “His work ethic, great judgment and skill have been crucial to The Post expanding into one of the most recognized and influential media brands in America.”

1950s Legacies

Edmund Lambeth (BSJ54, MSJ55)

Post author By Belinda Clarke
Post date May 13, 2020
No Comments on Edmund Lambeth (BSJ54, MSJ55)

Edmund B. Lambeth died May 2, 2020, in Columbia, Missouri. He was 87.

After serving his country in military intelligence during the Korean War, he chose a life of service in journalism and education.

After Medill, he spent six memorable years as a Washington, D.C., correspondent for Gannett News Service. When he left in 1968, Lambeth created the Washington Reporting Program for the Missouri School of Journalism at the University of Missouri and directed it until 1978.

A version of his doctoral dissertation in political science from American University in 1976, “The News Media and the Arab Oil Embargo, The Perceived Impact of the Media on Energy Policy Making,” appeared as the lead article in Autumn 1978 of Journalism Quarterly.

He then served as a professor of journalism at Indiana University from 1978 to 1983 and director of the University of Kentucky School of Journalism from 1983 to 1987. Lambeth then returned to MU as associate dean for Graduate Studies and Research and served in that role until 1990, when he returned to full-time teaching, research and writing.

He later served as director of the Center on Religion and the Professions from 2004 until 2006, during which time it was awarded a $1.5 million continuation grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts Inc.

Regarded as an expert in journalism ethics, his books included “Committed Journalism, An Ethic for the Profession” (1986, 1992), “Assessing Public Journalism” (1998) and “Professional Creativity and the Common Good” (2009). He served as president of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication from 1997 to 1998.

A recipient of numerous awards, Ed was a Congressional Fellow (1961-1962), a Nieman Fellow at Harvard (1967-1968) and served as a Fulbright Scholar in Israel from 1997 to 1998 and in Hungary from 2001 to 2002. He was presented the University of Missouri Thomas Jefferson Award in 1995.

Ed is survived by his wife, Fran, with whom he helped found and served on the board of the Regional AIDS Interfaith Network. His volunteer work in the congregations of Missouri and Community United Methodist churches also included Bible study, prison ministry and church vision committees. He also is survived by his two children, Linc Lambeth and Mary Naraghi, and two stepchildren, Aimee O’Connell and Ian Noyes, and their spouses; and 11 grandchildren. He will be missed.

https://www.columbiamissourian.com/obituaries/family_obituary/edmund-b-lambeth-june-4-1932-may-2-2020/article_b908beb4-8eff-11ea-a1ac-c322f77f8710.html

1960s Legacies

Daniel Harrison (BSJ64)

Daniel S. Harrison died on April 28 at 76. He was a resident of Westchester County, New York, for most of his life. He graduated from Edgemont High School in 1960 and from Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism in 1964.

Harrison was a reporter on the White Plains Dispatch and City Editor of the Yonkers Herald Statesman. Both later owned by Gannett newspapers.jhe also worked in Public Relations with General Foods. He later wrote for trade publications Chain Store Age Executive and Frozen Food Age. He was an avid reader of biography, history and politics.

In his retirement, he volunteered as editor and writer for the Astronomy Newsletter of New York City and for the Friends of Music Newsletter in Westchester.

He was predeceased by his wife Mollie Cohen in 1997 and by his parents Molly and Neil Harrison formerly of Hartsdale. His sister Abby Eller of Ithaca survives him and his niece and nephew Anne and Joshua Eller also of Ithaca.

https://obits.lohud.com/obituaries/lohud/obituary.aspx?n=daniel-s-harrison&pid=196184798&fhid=21959