Two Esteemed Journalists Appointed to the Livingston Awards Regional Judging Panel

Meghna Chakrabarti, host and editor of “On Point,” and Adam Ganucheau, editor-in-chief of Mississippi Today Join the Livingston Awards Judging Panel

Wallace House Center for Journalists welcomes the addition of Meghna Chakrabarti, host and editor of WBUR’s “On Point,” and Adam Ganucheau, editor-in-chief of Mississippi Today, to the Livingston Awards regional judging panel. They will join our esteemed regional and national judges in identifying the best reporting and storytelling by journalists under the age of 35.

Chakrabarti is the award-winning host and editor of “On Point,” a weekday radio show produced by WBUR in Boston and distributed by American Public Media. “On Point” has been frequently recognized for excellence in journalism under Chakrabarti’s leadership, reporting on the economy, health care, politics and the environment. She previously served as the host of “Radio Boston,” WBUR’s acclaimed weekday local show, and “Modern Love: The Podcast,” a collaboration of WBUR and The New York Times. Chakrabarti holds a master’s degree from Harvard University and an MBA with honors from Boston University.

Ganucheau is the editor-in-chief of Mississippi Today, Mississippi’s largest newsroom. He was the lead editor of the 2023 Livingston Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation “The Backchannel,” exposing high-profile players’ roles in the state’s welfare scandal. He previously worked as a staff reporter for Mississippi Today, AL.com, The Birmingham News, and the Clarion Ledger. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Ganucheau earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Mississippi.

The regional judges read all qualifying entries and select the finalists in local, national and international reporting categories. In addition to Chakrabarti and Ganucheau the regional judging panel includes Molly Ball of The Wall Street Journal; Stella M. Chávez of KERA Public Radio (Dallas); David Greene of Fearless Media; Stephen Henderson of BridgeDetroit, WDET public radio and Detroit Public Television; and Amna Nawaz of “PBS NewsHour.”

The national judges read all final entries and meet to select the Livingston winners in the local, national and international reporting categories and the Richard M. Clurman recipient, an award honoring a senior journalist for on-the-job mentoring. The national judging panel includes Raney Aronson-Rath of PBS; Sewell Chan of The Texas Tribune; Audie Cornish of CNN;  Matt Murray of News Corp; Lydia Polgreen of The New York Times; María Elena Salinas of ABC News; Bret Stephens of The New York Times; and Kara Swisher of New York Magazine.

Now Accepting Entries

The Livingston Awards are now accepting entries for work published in 2023. The entry deadline is February 1, 2024.

About the Livingston Awards


Livingston Awards honor journalists under the age of 35 for outstanding achievement in local, national and international reporting across all forms of journalism. The awards bolster the work of young reporters, create the next generation of journalism leaders and mentors, and advance civic engagement around powerful storytelling. The Livingston Awards are a program of Wallace House Center for Journalists at the University of Michigan, home to the Knight-Wallace Fellowships for Journalists and the Wallace House Presents event series.

Four Journalism Leaders Join Livingston Awards Judges

Raney Aronson-Rath, Matt Murray, Amna Nawaz and Lydia Polgreen appointed to Livingston Judging Panels 

Wallace House welcomes the addition of Raney Aronson-Rath, Matt Murray, Amna Nawaz and Lydia Polgreen to the Livingston Awards judging panels. They will join our long-serving regional and national judges in identifying the best reporting and storytelling by journalists under the age of 35.

Aronson-Rath, executive producer of the PBS investigative documentary program “Frontline,” and former Livingston Awards regional judge will move to the national judging panel. Murray, editor-in-chief of The Wall Street Journal, and Polgreen, head of programming for Gimlet, will also join the national judging panel. This esteemed group of judges includes Ken Auletta, media and communications writer, The New Yorker; Dean Baquet, executive editor, The New York Times; John Harris, co-founder, Politico; Clarence Page, syndicated columnist; Anna Quindlen, author; María Elena Salinas, contributor, CBS News; Bret Stephens, op-ed columnist, The New York Times and Kara Swisher executive producer, Code Conference and host of the podcasts “Sway” and “Pivot.”

Nawaz, senior national correspondent for PBS “NewsHour” will join the regional judging panel. The group of accomplished journalists includes Molly Ball, senior political reporter, Time; Stella Chavez, education reporter KERA public radio (Dallas); Chris Davis, executive editor and vice-president of investigations, Gannet; David Greene, former host, “Morning Edition,” NPR; Stephen Henderson, host, WDET, public radio Detroit and DPTV, Detroit Public Television and Shirley Leung, columnist and associate editor, The Boston Globe.

“The Livingston Awards highlight excellence across all forms of journalism. Raney, Lydia, Matt and Amna bring exceptional combined experience across visual, audio, print, broadcast, digital, daily and longform investigative journalism,” said Livingston Awards Director, Lynette Clemetson. “Their work with young reporters applying high standards to new storytelling approaches will add valuable insights to our already robust judging ranks.”

Aronson-Rath is the executive producer of “Frontline,” PBS’ flagship investigative journalism series, and is a leading voice on the future of journalism. She oversees the program’s acclaimed investigative reporting on-air and online and directs the series’ editorial vision. Appointed to the position in May 2015, she joined “Frontline” in 2001. Aronson-Rath has been with the Livingston Awards since 2005 serving as a regional judge. 

Murray is editor-in-chief of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires, responsible for all global newsgathering and editorial operations. He previously served as executive editor since 2017, and had been deputy editor-in-chief since 2013. He joined Dow Jones & Company in 1994 as a reporter for the Pittsburgh bureau.

Polgreen is head of content at Gimlet, a podcast studio at Spotify. Prior to that, she was editor in chief of HuffPost following a 15-year career at The New York Times that included roles as associate masthead editor, deputy international editor, South Africa bureau chief, correspondent for the New Delhi bureau and chief of the West Africa bureau. Polgreen received the 2009 Livingston Award for international reporting for her series, “The Spoils.”

Nawaz serves as senior national correspondent and primary substitute anchor for PBS “NewsHour.” Previously she was an anchor and correspondent at ABC News and served as a foreign correspondent at NBC News, reporting from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria, Turkey and the broader region. She is also the founder and former managing editor of NBC’s Asian America platform, built to elevate the voices of America’s fastest-growing population. 

“It is especially meaningful that Lydia and Raney assume these new roles as long-standing members of the Livingston community – Lydia as a former winner for international reporting, and Raney as a long-serving regional judge. As their own careers as executives and change-makers in journalism have grown, they have maintained their commitment to the mission of the Livingston Awards, to recognize and lift up the next generation of leaders.”

Now Accepting Entries

The Livingston Awards are now accepting entries for work published in 2020. The entry deadline is February 1, 2021.

About the Livingston Awards

The Livingston Awards for Young Journalists are the most prestigious honor for professional journalists under the age of 35 and are the largest all-media, general reporting prizes in American journalism. Entries from print, online, visual and audio storytelling are judged against one another, as technology blurs distinctions between traditional platforms. The $10,000 prizes are awarded annually for local, national and international reporting. The Livingston Awards are a program of Wallace House at the University of Michigan, home to the Knight-Wallace Fellowships for Journalists and the Wallace House Presents event series. 

Announcing 2020 Livingston Winners

2020 Livingston Award winners (counter-clockwise from top: Caroline Chen, Assia Boundaoui and Brett Murphy)

In the midst of a seismic social movement and a lingering pandemic, it is pivotal to our democracy to support and recognize reporting that advances the cause of truth and justice. Today the Livingston Awards honor stories that represent the best in local, national and international reporting by journalists under age 35. The stories highlight a New Jersey hospital that prolonged life support to boost its transplant survival rate; the FBI’s decades-long surveillance of a tight-knit Muslim community outside of Chicago; and the U.S. military’s devastating raid on its own security forces in Azizabad, Afghanistan. The $10,000 prizes are for work released in 2019.

Livingston Awards national judges John Harris, co-founder of Politico, Ken Auletta of The New Yorker and Christiane Amanpour of CNNi and PBS congratulate the winners above in a video tribute. This year’s Livingston Award winners will be honored in person in June 2021, when we hope to return to our traditional awards luncheon.

“As we honor our Livingston Award winners, we are consumed by unrest and uncertainty.  2019 seems like a lifetime ago, and we wonder what difference an award can make when we are torn by grief, anger and weariness,” said Livingston Awards Director Lynette Clemetson. “But the reporting we recognize today, reporting that scrutinizes accepted narratives and brings transparency to hidden tactics and actions, reminds us of the power of journalism to move us beyond the breaking news cycle. It reminds us that it will be journalists who, months and years from now, help us to more fully understand all that we are struggling through and pushing toward now.” 

Funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the University of Michigan to support the vital role of a free and independent press, the awards bolster the work of young reporters, create the next generation of journalism leaders and mentors, and advance civic engagement around powerful storytelling. Other sponsors include the Indian Trial Charitable Foundation, the Mollie Parnis Livingston Foundation, Christiane Amanpour, and Dr. Gil Omenn and Martha Darling.

The 2020 winners for work released in 2019 are:

LOCAL REPORTING

Caroline Chen for the ProPublica series “Heartless Hospital,” co-published with New Jersey Advance Media and WNYC, an investigation of a hospital transplant team’s efforts to keep a vegetative patient on life support and mislead federal regulators, while failing to consult with the patient’s family on treatment decisions.

“I recall being swept away by the power of Caroline Chen’s series ‘Heartless Hospital.’ It exposed an outrageous reality. Imagine doctors keeping a heart transplant patient with no hope of survival alive in a vegetative state in order to bolster their one-year survival statistics and keep federal funding. There’s not any doubt that’s what happened at Newark Beth Israel Hospital. Caroline Chen had it on tape. Her story led to public investigations and reforms that will help future patients.” – John Harris

NATIONAL REPORTING

Assia Boundaoui for PBS’s POV “The Feeling of Being Watched,” a deeply personal, riveting documentary uncovering a two-decade FBI probe on more than 600 Muslim American mosques, businesses, charities, and private individuals across the U.S. and examining the corrosive impact of perpetual surveillance on the community of Bridgeview, Illinois that Boundaoui’s Algerian-American family has long called home.

“When I clicked on Assia Boundaoui’s video ‘The Feeling of Being Watched,’ the journalist cop in me was wary. Feelings. Journalists should deal in facts. Yet as I watched, I realized the feelings, in fact, did matter. The humanity she dared share, showed the story more powerfully than a keep your distance reporter could. We watched her interview her mother, brother, and members of the Muslim community. We learned that the FBI was indeed watching them. She filed freedom of information requests. She asked tough questions to government officials who lied to her. She grew before our eyes into a truthteller. She revealed that for more than 20 years the Chicago FBI profiled a Muslim community, tracked them, and gathered information on an entire community. I say it made us all watch and feel – really feel.” – Ken Auletta

INTERNATIONAL REPORTING

Brett Murphy of USA TODAY for “Show of Force,” a searing investigation of a 2008 U.S. military attack on its own security forces in Azizabad, Afghanistan, killing dozens of civilians, including as many as 60 children, and the subsequent attempts by the U.S. Defense Department to downplay the tragedy.

“I congratulate Brett Murphy for deciding to go back and go through the evidence that had been kept away from public consumption – from going to Afghanistan, to getting thousands of pages of military records that had not been made public, to doing the leg work in the United States, and to talking to soldiers who had been involved. Of course, the Pentagon didn’t want to talk about this. Of course, they wanted it to be kept secret, but Brett uncovered it and did an extraordinary job. It’s not only the stories of the day that are important, but it’s the stories that you go back to look at and come out with a different truth – the truth that wasn’t known at the time – that are important. We absolutely need that now.” – Christiane Amanpour

In addition to Harris, Auletta and Amanpour, the Livingston national judging panel includes; Dean Baquet of The New York Times; Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune; Anna Quindlen author;  María Elena Salinas, CBS News contributor; Bret Stephens of The New York Times; and Kara Swisher of Recode.

More on the winners here.

About the Livingston Awards

The Livingston Awards for Young Journalists are the most prestigious honor for professional journalists under the age of 35 and are the largest all-media, general reporting prizes in American journalism. Entries from print, online, visual and audio storytelling are judged against one another, as technology blurs distinctions between traditional platforms. The $10,000 prizes are awarded annually for local, national and international reporting. The Livingston Awards are a program of Wallace House at the University of Michigan, home to the Knight-Wallace Fellowships for Journalists and the Wallace House Presents event series. Learn more at wallacehouse.umich.edu/Livingston-awards.

About the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

The Knight Foundation supports transformational ideas that promote quality journalism, advance media innovation, engage communities and foster the arts. The foundation believes that democracy thrives when people and communities are informed and engaged. For more, visit:  knightfoundation.org.

Wallace House Presents “Duterte’s Facebook-Fueled Rise to Power: Manipulating Public Opinion to Capture an Election”

Wallace House Presents Davey Alba of The New York Times and 2019 Livingston Award winner with Ceren Budak of the School of Information and College of Engineering 

Wednesday, January 29 | 4 – 5:30 p.m.
Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy
Annenberg Auditorium
Free and open to the public

Watch the discussion here »

Join the Conversation

In 2018, journalist Davey Alba traveled to the Philippines to investigate Facebook’s breakneck proliferation in that country and President Rodrigo Duterte’s rise to power. She revealed how the politician’s incendiary style aligned perfectly with the tech company’s algorithms that reward entertaining, inflammatory content. From maligning opponents to espousing hardline policies to combat the drug trade, Duterte’s operatives created memes, propaganda and egregious libel that flourished on Facebook. Join Alba and Ceren Budak, associate professor, University of Michigan, for an examination of how demagogic political campaigns worldwide have weaponized the social media platform.

About the Speakers

Davey Alba is a reporter for The New York Times covering technology. Prior to joining the Times, she was a senior reporter at BuzzFeed News. She has been a staff writer at Wired and an editor at Popular Mechanics. Alba grew up in the Philippines and holds a B.A. degree from De La Salle University in Manila and an M.A. in science journalism from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She received the 2019 Livingston Award for international reporting for her BuzzFeed investigation  “How Duterte Used Facebook to Fuel the Philippine Drug War“.

Ceren Budak is an assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Information and the College of Engineering. Her research interests lie in the area of computational social science, a discipline at the intersection of computer science, statistics and the social sciences.  Previously, she was a postdoctoral researcher at Microsoft Research New York. Budak received a Ph.D. from the computer science department at University of California, Santa Barbara and a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Bilkent University in Turkey.

About the Moderator

Molly Kleinman is the program manager of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy program at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. She studies higher education policy, access to information, and faculty experiences with technology. Kleinman received a Ph.D. in higher education policy from the University of Michigan Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education, a M.S. degree in information from the University of Michigan School of Information, and a B.A. degree in English and gender studies from Bryn Mawr College.

This Livingston Lecture event is co-sponsored by the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and the Science, Technology and Public Policy Program.

This event is produced with support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Birgit Rieck, Pursuing Her Dream

 

by Lynette Clemetson ’10

After 19 years of working with journalists eager to define the next bold steps in their careers, Birgit Rieck, our beloved Associate Director of the Knight-Wallace Fellowships, has decided to embark on a bold new journey for herself. She’s leaving Wallace House to reconnect with her life back in Germany and to pursue new possibilities for her abundant skills. Her last day with us will be Friday, August 23. 

It’s difficult to imagine Wallace House without Birgit. For hundreds of people who have walked through our doors, myself included, she has been an essential part of the Wallace House experience, a vital point of contact who made everything possible. Far beyond the planning of seminars, workshops and international travel, Birgit – with her infectious laugh and infallible German efficiency – created much of the warmth and welcome of the special atmosphere here. 

Her fingerprints and sensibility dot every facet of our Wallace House programs, from the aesthetic beauty of the Hovey Lecture in the back garden, to the renovation of the Wallace House library and creation of our editing suite, to the hands-on fellowship workshops on writing, editing and audio/visual storytelling. She has been a friend, mentor, travel companion and confidant to countless journalists who have entrusted us with a year of their lives. 

Birgit joined the Wallace House staff in 2000 to manage the Livingston Awards for Young Journalists and in 2004 changed positions to manage the Knight-Wallace Fellowships.

Before coming to Michigan, Birgit studied anthropology (Latin American studies) and English literature at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-University in Bonn. She was awarded a Master’s degree in cultural anthropology (African studies) and education from Johannes-Gutenberg-University in Mainz after completing fieldwork in Uganda and Rome. This fall, she will complete the Media Transformation Challenge, a one-year executive leadership program at Harvard’s Kennedy School. 

As the associate director of the program, she managed daily activities and herded unruly groups of fellows on outings from Flint to Istanbul. She enlivened our intellectual pursuits with pop-up tango lessons, wine tastings and horseback riding. She made the hard work and small details of the fellowship look effortless. She could be laughing at a Thursday night dinner, quietly slip away to arrange group flights for 25 (with multiple return dates!), then be back downstairs for a toast and dessert, without breaking a sweat.

Anyone who has been part of the Knight-Wallace Fellowship knows the transformative power of stepping back to evaluate your career, your dreams and your aspirations. In life there are sometimes moments of clarity when you know it is time for something new, even if you’re not quite certain yet what it is. It is part of our driving philosophy at Wallace House to honor those moments and to respond seriously to the possibilities they present. Those leaps take guts, belief and heart – all traits Birgit possesses in abundance.  Though we truly cannot fathom the place without her, we know that wonderful surprises await.

To state the obvious, Birgit is irreplaceable. We will not be filling her position any time soon. Instead I will use the next year to evaluate the best structure for Wallace House moving forward. We have a Knight-Wallace Reunion coming up in September 2020. Birgit has agreed to come back then, so we can have a spectacular party and aptly celebrate all she has meant to us. 

Lynette Clemetson is Director of Wallace House. She was a 2010 Knight-Wallace Fellow. You can reach her at clemetly@umich.edu or wallacehouse@umich.edu. Follow her on Twitter @lclemetson

Announcing the 2019 Livingston Award Finalists

2019 Livingston Finalists

 

The Livingston Awards for Young Journalists and the University of Michigan announced today the 2019 finalists in local, national and international reporting. The awards honor the best reporting and storytelling by journalists under the age of 35 across all forms of journalism. The 55 finalist selections were chosen from more than 400 entries.

The national judges will introduce the winners on June 4, 2019, at the annual Livingston Awards luncheon in New York City.

Funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the University of Michigan to support the vital role of a free and independent press, the awards bolster the work of young reporters, create the next generation of journalism leaders and mentors, and advance civic engagement around powerful storytelling. Other sponsors include the Indian Trail Charitable Foundation, the Mollie Parnis Livingston Foundation, Christiane Amanpour and Dr. Gil Omenn and Martha Darling.

“Each year the Livingston Awards finalists remind us of the essential role journalism plays not simply in documenting facts, but in helping us all to understand, question and experience the complex issues of our times,” said Wallace House Director Lynette Clemetson. “Through excellence in reporting and creativity in storytelling these finalists moved the narrative on stories dominating the headlines and those that were largely unknown.”

The Livingston Awards regional judges read all qualifying entries to select the finalists in local, national and international reporting. The regional judging panel includes: Raney Aronson-Rath, executive producer, “Frontline,” PBS; Molly Ball, national political correspondent, Time; Stella Chávez, education reporter, KERA Public Radio (Dallas); Chris Davis, Vice-President of Investigative Journalism, Gannett; David Greene, host, “Morning Edition,” NPR; Stephen Henderson, host, “Detroit Today,” WDET; and Shirley Leung, interim editorial page editor, The Boston Globe.

The Livingston Awards national judges review all finalist entries and select the winners. The national judges are Christiane Amanpour, chief international correspondent, CNNi and host, “Amanpour on PBS”; Ken Auletta, author and media and communications writer, The New Yorker; Dean Baquet, executive editor, The New York Times; John Harris, co-founder, Politico; Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune; Anna Quindlen, author; María Elena Salinas, independent journalist and producer; Bret Stephens, op-ed columnist, The New York Times; and Kara Swisher, executive editor, Recode

Following are the 2019 finalists, for work produced in 2018. Links to their work here.

Local Reporting

  • Carla Astudillo, Craig McCarthy, Sean Sullivan, Blake Nelson, Yan Wu, Disha Raychaudhuri and Erin Petenko, NJ Advance Media (NJ.com and The Star-Ledger)
  • Bethany Barnes, The Oregonian/OregonLive
  • Nate Berg, Curbed
  • Dave Boucher and Allen Arthur, The Marshall Project and USA TODAY NETWORK-Tennessee
  • Alison Bowen, Chicago Tribune
  • Zoë Carpenter, The Nation
  • Jessica Contrera, The Washington Post
  • Hannah Dreier, ProPublica in partnership with New York magazine, “This American Life,” and The New York Times Magazine
  • Liam Elder-Connors and Emily Corwin, Vermont Public Radio
  • Andrew Ford, Asbury Park Press
  • Amy Julia Harris and Shoshana Walter, Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting
  • Lizzie Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle
  • J. David McSwane and Andrew Chavez, The Dallas Morning News
  • Julian Noisecat, High Country News
  • Nick Pachelli, San Francisco Magazine
  • Connor Sheets, Alabama Media Group (The Birmingham News)
  • Aliyya Swaby and Alexa Ura, The Texas Tribune
  • Kendall Taggart and Mike Hayes, BuzzFeed News
  • Kate Wells and Lindsey Smith, Michigan Radio

 National Reporting

  • Jonathan Blitzer, The New Yorker
  • Elizabeth Bruenig, The Washington Post
  • Brian Burnsed, Sports Illustrated
  • Andrea Patiño Contreras and Almudena Toral, Univision News Digital in collaboration with the Knight Foundation and The Intercept
  • Caitlin Dickerson, The New York Times
  • Emily Gogolak, Politico Magazine
  • Vanessa Gonzalez-Block and Emma Seslowsky, CNN
  • Jihan Hafiz, “Matter of Fact with Soledad O’Brien,” Hearst Media
  • Derek Kravitz, Al Shaw, Claire Perlman, and Alex Mierjeski, ProPublica
  • Julia Lurie, Mother Jones
  • Daniel Medina, The Intercept
  • Tricia L. Nadolny, The Philadelphia Inquirer
  • Sophie Nieto-Muñoz and Alex Napoliello, NJ Advance Media (NJ.com and The Star-Ledger)
  • Chris Outcalt, The Atavist Magazine
  • Lizzie Presser, The California Sunday Magazine in partnership with the Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute
  • Naveena Sadasivam and Zoë Schlanger, Quartz and Texas Observer
  • Sarah Smith, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
  • Margaret Cheatham Williams, Ella Dobson, Angela Stempel and Jocie Juritz, The New York Times
  • Will Wright, Caity Coyne and Molly Born, The GroundTruth Project / Report for America in partnership with Lexington Herald-Leader, Charleston Gazette-Mail and West Virginia Public Broadcasting

 International Reporting

  • Atossa Abrahamian, The New York Times
  • Davey Alba, BuzzFeed News
  • Anna-Catherine Brigida, World Politics Review
  • Mstyslav Chernov and Krysta Fauria, The Associated Press
  • Mansi Choksi and Kim Wall, Longreads
  • Luisa Conlon, Hanna Miller and Lacy Jane Roberts, The New York Times Op-Docs in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting
  • Jane Ferguson, PBS NewsHour
  • Ryan Gallagher, The Intercept
  • Louisa Loveluck and Zakaria Zakaria, The Washington Post
  • Niharika Mandhana, The Wall Street Journal
  • Timothy McLaughlin, Wired in partnership with the Pulitzer Center
  • Kevin Sieff, The Washington Post
  • Sonia Smith, Texas Monthly
  • Kejal Vyas, The Wall Street Journal
  • Spencer Woodman, International Consortium of Investigative Journalists
  • Finlay Young, ProPublica in partnership with Time

More on the finalists and links to their work »

The cutting-edge features of debank include a Web3-native messenger and an extensive web3 portfolio tracker that effectively tracks all your tokens, DeFi protocols, and NFTs across all EVM chains.

Livingston Winners at The Power of Narrative Conference

 

Longform Narrative on a Breaking News Cycle: Crafting the “74 Seconds” Podcast

March 23 | 10: a.m.
Boston University, George Sherman Union
Backcourt

Wallace House travels to Boston University’s The Power of Narrative conference with the 2018 Livingston Award winning Minnesota Public Radio team. Riham Feshir, Tracy Mumford and Meg Martin will share how they traced the shooting death of Philando Castile, followed the officer’s courtroom trial and brought contextual insights about race, law enforcement and justice together for a 22-episode podcast, while simultaneously reporting the breaking news story for radio and the internet.

Speakers:

  • Riham Feshir is a reporter at Minnesota Public Radio currently reporting on immigration policy, race and culture. Feshir graduated from the University of Minnesota’s journalism program and started her career working at community newspapers in greater Minnesota and the Twin Cities area. She came to MPR four years ago as an evening general assignment reporter chasing breaking news. She quickly jumped into coverage of police shootings in the Twin Cities and the aftermath of high profile incidents including the shooting of Jamar Clark and the Minneapolis police fourth precinct occupation that followed. She reported on marches, protests and highway shutdowns, along with other daily news and enterprise stories on various topics including mental health and vulnerable adults.

 

  • Meg Martin is a managing editor on the enterprise team at Minnesota Public Radio. She joined the MPR newsroom as a digital editor after a short stint at MPR’s Public Insight Network and five years in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Roanoke. She is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame. Martin was the editor behind the ’74 Seconds’ 22-episode podcast, for which she received the 2018 Livingston Award for Local Reporting.

 

  • Tracy Mumford is a podcast developer producer for American Public Media, the parent company of Minnesota Public Radio. A graduate of the University of Chicago and the Salt institute, she served a one-year term with AmeriCorps and worked at nonprofit art organizations before landing her first journalism job at Minnesota Public Radio. As a producer, Mumford joined the team in writing, reporting and producing every episode of ’74 Seconds.’ The team received several awards for the podcast. Mumford  and two of her colleagues also received the 2018 Livingston Award for Local Reporting.

Wallace House Presents an Evening with Ronan Farrow and Ken Auletta


Ken Auletta and Ronan Farrow

“The Weinstein Effect: Breaking the Stories That Spurred a Movement”

Tuesday, March 19
Rackham Auditorium

Watch the discussion here »











 





 





Wallace House Presents an evening with Ronan Farrow and Ken Auletta









In October, 2017, The New Yorker published reporter Ronan Farrow’s exposé detailing the first on-the-record accounts of alleged assault and rape by Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, followed by a series of pieces on the systems that enabled him. Farrow’s investigation helped spur a worldwide movement that redefined our cultural and institutional responses to sexual harassment and assault. Word of Weinstein’s abusive behavior had circulated among Hollywood and media circles for years. In 2002, the acclaimed author and New Yorker media writer Ken Auletta published a deeply reported profile detailing the powerful producer’s threats and intimidation tactics, but he could not get any of the women alleging sexual assault to go on the record. What changed—in Hollywood, in media, in society—to make 2017 such a turning point?





Join Wallace House Presents for an evening with reporters Ken Auletta and Ronan Farrow as they discuss their individual attempts to get to the truth about Harvey Weinstein and how reporters ultimately stood together in confronting one of the biggest stories in recent memory.





Questions for speakers? Tweet us using #WallaceHouse.





 





About the Speakers









Ronan Farrow is a contributing writer for The New Yorker and the author of “War and Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence.” His next book, “Catch and Kill,” about how Weinstein and other power brokers wield influence to suppress explosive stories, is forthcoming. In 2018, Farrow received a Livingston Award for his New Yorker investigation of Harvey Weinstein. A native of New York City, he is a lawyer and former government advisor. Farrow is a graduate of Bard College and Yale Law School.





Ken Auletta is an author and media writer who has written the “Annals of Communications” profiles and essays for The New Yorker since 1992. He joined the Livingston Awards national judging panel 37 years ago and is now the program’s longest serving judge. He recused himself from voting in the national reporting category in 2018. The author of twelve books, his most recent book, “Frenemies: The Epic Disruption of the Ad Business (and Everything Else),” was published in 2018. His writing and journalism has been recognized with numerous awards and honors including the 2002 National Magazine Award and a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Society of Silurians.









This event is co-sponsored by
U-M College of Literature, Arts and Science
Department of American Culture
Department of Women’s Studies
Department of English Language and Literature





This event is produced with support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.







			


	



			
				

	

		
How to report and produce break-out work: Exploring Livingston Award winning investigations

				

					

			


	

		
Michael S. Schmidt, Christina Goldbaum, Chris Davis




Livingston Awards winners Michael S. Schmidt and Christina Goldbaum speak with Chris Davis at 2018 IRE Orlando


June 15 | 2:30 – 3:30 p.m.

Oceans 4

2018 IRE Orlando


 


Meet the 2018 winners of the Livingston Awards for Young Journalists. From landing their first journalism jobs to breaking investigative award-winning pieces, they will examine ways to get noticed, dig deeper and tell powerful stories.


Panelists:


    

  • Michael S. Schmidt, 2018 Livingston Award winner for national reporting. A full year before the #MeToo movement gained traction, Michael Schmidt and Emily Steel dug into a decade old lawsuit filed against Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly. What the Times’ team uncovered would lead to the discovery of $45 million in sexual harassment settlements involving O’Reilly and topple cable news’ biggest star.Schmidt is a Washington correspondent for The New York Times. For the past year, his coverage has focused on Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into links between Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia and whether the president obstructed justice.
    • 



    

  • Christina Goldbaum, 2018 Livingston Award winner for international reporting. Christina Goldbaum’s on-the-ground reporting on growing U.S. military engagement and counter-terrorism efforts in Africa has become essential reading. In her series for The Daily Beast, Goldbaum pieced together a military raid that is alleged to have resulted in the deaths of 10 Somali civilians, including at least one child.Goldbaum is an independent journalist based in Mogadishu. She has written for The New York Times, Foreign Policy, USA Today, The Daily Beast, VICE and The Wall Street Journal, and has produced TV segments for “PBS NewsHour,” Netflix and “VICE News Tonight” on HBO.
    • 



Moderator:


    

  • Chris Davis, Vice-President for Investigative Journalism at Gannett and Livingston Awards judge. Davis oversees USA Today’s major investigative efforts at Gannett’s newspapers across the country, providing guidance to national, regional and local watchdog projects. Previously, he was the deputy editor for investigations and data at the Tampa Bay Times. As an I-team editor, he led investigations that earned three Pulitzer Prizes and two Livingston Awards.
    • 



 


Sponsored by the Knight Foundation




			


	



			
				

	

		
2018 Livingston Winners Announced

				

					

			


	

		
2018 Livingston Award winners (clockwise from top left): Riham Feshir, Tracy Mumford, Meg Martin, Ronan Farrow, Emily Steel, Michael S. Schmidt, Christina Goldbaum and Walt Mossberg, recipient of the Richard M. Clurman Award


 


The Livingston Awards for Young Journalists were awarded today to stories that exemplified the best in investigative reporting and narrative storytelling across platforms.  The winners included a podcast exploring a traffic stop that ended in a fatal police shooting streamed on social media, print exposés detailing explosive sexual assault allegations against Bill O’Reilly and Harvey Weinstein, and an investigation into a U.S. military operation that killed Somali civilians. The awards recognize the best journalism by professionals under age 35 across of all platforms, including text, visual and audio storytelling.


 


The $10,000 prizes honor outstanding achievement in local, national and international reporting. In this exceptional year, the Livingston judges awarded two winners in the national reporting category for stories that led to the #MeToo movement and a national shift in recognition of sexual harassment, assault and abuse of power.


 


The Livingston Awards also honored Walt Mossberg with the Richard M. Clurman Award for mentoring. The $5,000 prize is given each year to an experienced journalist who has played an active role in guiding and nurturing the careers of young reporters. The prize is named for the late Richard M. Clurman, former chief of correspondents for Time-Life News Service and architect of the Livingston Awards.


 


Livingston judges María Elena Salinas of Investigation Discovery, Ken Auletta of The New Yorker, Dean Baquet of The New York Times, John Harris of Politico and Kara Swisher of Recode introduced the winners today at a luncheon in New York City.


 


“These winners represent the power of fearless reporting across a range of journalistic forms,” said Livingston Awards Director Lynette Clemetson. “With reporting that catapulted issues to national prominence and unpacked complex topics through long-form exploration, this year’s winners demonstrate the social and political impact of ambitious journalism.”


 


The 2018 winners for work published in 2017 are:


 


Local Reporting


Riham Feshir, Meg Martin and Tracy Mumford of Minnesota Public Radio News, for the podcast series, “74 Seconds,” a deconstruction of the July 2016 shooting death of Philando Castile by police officer Jeronimo Yanez and coverage of the ensuing trial. Through meticulous and balanced reporting, the series put a human face on both the victim and the officer who pulled the trigger.


 


“Listeners told us that they came away with a better understanding of the criminal justice system, police training, gun rights and race,” said Feshir. “They said they were more empathetic and engaged citizens after listening to our stories.”


 


National Reporting


Ronan Farrow of The New Yorker, for “Investigation of Harvey Weinstein,” a groundbreaking exposé on the alleged assault and rape by Hollywood powerbroker, Harvey Weinstein, and the sprawling system of spies the producer employed to keep the stories silent. Farrow’s investigation unleashed the #MeToo movement and precipitated the criminal investigation and arrest of Weinstein.


 


“Helping to share the stories of survivors of sexual harassment and assault has been deeply rewarding. These women did a great service for survivors everywhere,” Farrow said. “What they did – and continue to do – is incredibly brave.”


 


National Reporting


Emily Steel and Michael S. Schmidt of The New York Times, for “O’Reilly Thrives, Then Falls, as Settlements Add Up,” an investigation uncovering $45 million in sexual harassment settlements involving Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly. Steel and Schmidt’s stories ignited media outlets everywhere to report on allegations of sexual misconduct and abuse against powerful men and emboldened a progression of women to come forward and tell their own stories of sexual abuse.


 


“It’s just been so amazing to see how much the world has started to change,” said Steel. “Article after article, woman after woman found the courage to share their stories and the world listened.”


 


International Reporting


Christina Goldbaum, of The Daily Beast, for “Strong Evidence that U.S. Special Operations Forces Massacred Civilians in Somalia,” an on-the-ground investigation of a botched U.S. military raid that is alleged to have resulted in the deaths of 10 Somali civilians, including at least one child. While stories of conflict in Africa fell off the radars of many American news outlets, Goldberg was there to shine a light on growing U.S. military engagement and counter-terrorism efforts in the region.


 


“Reporting this story demonstrated to me in real world terms how the perpetrators of violent crimes will take any measures to protect themselves, and that justice for victims of those crimes is both elusive and a feat worth striving towards, no matter how difficult attaining it can be,” said Goldbaum, whose work was supported by the Fund for Investigative Journalism.


 


Mentoring Award


Walt Mossberg was honored with the Richard M. Clurman Award for his commitment to fostering the careers of numerous technology reporters. Mossberg is the creator of the Personal Technology column in The Wall Street Journal and co-founder of AllThingsD, Recode and the Code Conference. In a video tribute at the luncheon, several technology reporters spoke about Mossberg’s influence on their careers.  View video>>


 


In addition to Salinas, Auletta, Baquet and Swisher, the Livingston judging panel includes Christiane Amanpour of CNNi and PBS; Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune; Anna Quindlen, author; and Bret Stephens of The New York Times.


 


Funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the University of Michigan to support the vital role of a free and independent press, the awards bolster the work of young reporters, create the next generation of journalism leaders and advance civic engagement around powerful storytelling. Other sponsors include the Indian Trial Charitable Foundation, the Mollie Parnis Livingston Foundation, Christiane Amanpour and Dr. Gil Omenn and Martha Darling.