Kent State to Host 2001 Batten Awards

The awards program will be held on April 19, 2001 and will honor the year’s best examples of civic journalism with a $25,000 cash award. The symposium will explore some of the changes taking place in American communities and in the profession of journalism as it moves into a digital age.

“Kent State’s unique place in history following our campus tragedy in 1970 has led us to a deeper understanding of the need for the university to play an active role in encouraging dialogue among various segments of our community,” said university President Carol Cartwright, in supporting the School of Journalism and Mass Communication’s proposal.

Partnering with the university are The Beacon Journal in Akron, Ohio, and public radio stations WKSU and NETO, the Northeast Ohio Education Television Organization. Also agreeing to participate is Roger Fidler, a professor and director of the Ohio Institute for Information Research and Management.

The symposium will examine how multimedia collaborations can enrich news coverage and civic involvement, how new technology can foster public relationships and help gather feedback for newsrooms, and how newsrooms can balance autonomy and community needs in the coverage of race relations. As part of the university’s proposal, journalism students will cover the symposium as a major project of a new “convergence” classroom facility to open in January. Sample lesson plans will also be created for junior and senior high schools.

Serving as host for the Batten Awards and Symposium will “provide an opportunity to engage students and faculty in a meaningful dialogue about how current and future journalists might better connect with their communities, rebuild their credibility, expand their vision and be more inclusive in their coverage,” said Pam Creedon, director of the journalism school.

This year’s awards program was co-sponsored by Boston University’s College of Communications and Department of Journalism. To receive a copy of “The People’s Choice: The Media, The Campaign, and the Citizens,” a 28-page booklet with highlights and keynote addresses, call the Pew Center, 202-331-3200.
Earlier events were hosted by Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and the Minnesota Journalism Center of the University of Minnesota with the St. Paul Pioneer Press, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, KTCA-TV and Minnesota Public Radio.

Feb. 9, 2001: Batten Award Deadline

The Batten Award for Excellence in Civic Journalism was created to spotlight journalism that is more than exemplary public service journalism. It specifically seeks to reward journalism that tries, from the outset, to engage people in community issues and to support their involvement – active and deliberative – in the life of their community, without advocating a particular outcome.

The competition, for a $25,000 cash prize, is open to news reports aired, published or posted online during the 2000 calendar year. The deadline for entries is Friday, February 9, 2001.

Eligible are print or online team reports, broadcasts, series and accumulated bodies of work. Past Batten Award winners have developed journalism marked by one or more of the following characteristics. It:

• Interacts in various ways with readers, viewers and listeners.

• Helps people identify issues or problems.

• Taps into the concerns of various stakeholders.

• Engages people in considering choices, trade-offs and consequences.

• Examines possible solutions.

• Illuminates the common ground on difficult issues and

• Advances participatory democracy in other ways.

Successful entries need not necessarily address some major, immediate problem. The awards committee is also interested in developing civic journalism approaches to everyday community concerns.

Applicants will be asked to describe the problem their journalism sought to address, define what the news organization hoped to accomplish with the journalism, explain why the newsroom sought a civic journalism approach, and list what civic journalism philosophies and tools were used. Applicants will also be asked to assess how they think they achieved their goals, how they assisted readers and viewers in understanding the subject, and what impact their journalism had on the community.

Copies of the guidelines and the application are available at www.pewcenter.org. To ensure that you receive a Call for Entries reminder to be mailed in November, call or e-mail the Pew Center, 202-331-3200, news@pccj.org.