The Education Writers Association is pleased to announce the winners of the 2012 National Awards for Education Reporting, recognizing dogged journalism, accomplished storytelling, and insightful analysis produced by print, radio and online media outlets across the country.
The 62 winning entries, chosen from among hundreds of submissions, came from newsrooms as small as nursery schools and as large as college dormitories. First-place winners are eligible for the Fred M. Hechinger Grand Prize for Distinguished Education Reporting, whose winner will be announced on May 4th during EWA’s 66th National Seminar. All winners will be honored at the event, which is being held from May 2-4 at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.
The 2012 National Awards winners stood out for many reasons. Some yielded immediate impact, such as resignations of top officials, while others laid bare misconduct, including misuse of public funds. A considerable number of winning entries stemmed from collaborations among diverse outlets that pooled their talents in print, video and audio storytelling to produce compelling, multidimensional coverage. Some entries were noteworthy because of their creative use of data. One award-winner mined data to uncover striking disparities in graduation rates among traditional and alternative high schools, for example. Another crunched numbers to show how many 9th graders in a large urban school went on to punch their golden ticket to college.
The reporting contest, an EWA tradition stretching back decades, included several new categories this year. Four categories were created to reflect the expanding number of education-only news outlets. Two others were introduced to honor the valuable policy analysis and other content produced by education organizations, such as think tanks and advocacy groups.
Contest judging was conducted independently, under the direction of Chief Judge Tamara M. Cooke Henry, Ph.D., of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland. In all, 25 judges reviewed hundreds of submissions, many coming within a hair’s breadth of winning one of the three prizes possible in each category.
Five Report writers are among the winners of the 2012 National Awards for Education Reporting, announced Tuesday by the Education Writers Association.
Sarah Carr won first prize for beat reporting, for stories covering k-12 education in the South. Carr’s stories, which span the topics of school choice, segregation, and teacher effectiveness inMississippi and Louisiana, have been published by Time and The Atlantic.
Jon Marcus shared the second prize in the same category, for comprehensive coverage of higher education. Marcus’s work frequently appears inTime, CNN Money, and NBC News.
Sara Neufeld, a contributing writer for The Hechinger Report was awarded a special citation for her collaboration with the NJ Spotlight and WNYC for “A Promise To Renew in Newark,” a series examining a the turnaround attempts of a low-performing school in New Jersey.
Sarah Garland and Jill Barshay were also awarded a special citation for their investigative reporting project “Teaching the Teachers NYC,” a series with Beth Fertig of WNYC that examined the ongoing professional development of teachers in New York City.
The 62 winning entries, selected from hundreds of submissions, recognize the best education journalism produced by print, radio, and online media outlets in the country.
Photo Credit: www.ewa.org
Source publication: Education Writers Association