Civic Journalism Award Created to Honor Former Knight-Ridder Chairman James K. Batten
Washington, D.C., July 14, 1995 – The Pew Charitable Trusts and the Pew Center for Civic Journalism today announced creation of the James K. Batten Award for Excellence in Civic Journalism to be presented annually to recognize the nation’s most successful civic journalism initiatives. The first $25,000 award will honor Mr. Batten’s own leadership and […]
Civic Journalism: From Citizens Up
1995 Batten Symposium Highlights The 1995 James K. Batten Symposium on Civic Journalism featured many outstanding speakers. Excerpts from their speeches are featured below. Thomas Winship Chair, Batten Award Advisory Board Cynicism about public life is at all all-time high. History’s first presidential campaign to engage new media techniques galore is about to begin. And […]
The Inaugural James K. Batten Award for Excellence in Civic Journalism
“…I think it’s good that our people realize it’s not enough to just lay out the wickedness of the world …but that they’re also asking, How can I help my community? How can I help it do a better job?” James K. Batten Chairman, Knight-Ridder Inc. Well before 1989, one journalist began talking about […]
Journalism: From Citizens Up The Puff Adder’s Nest of Modern Journalism
1996 Batten Awards Keynote Address James Fallows Author, “Breaking the News,” “How the Media Undermine American Democracy” Washington Editor, The Atlantic Monthly I am honored to participate in a ceremony honoring James Batten and to follow Tom Winship to the stage. He has long been a guiding light of the news business, and […]
Honorable Mentions
1996 Batten Awards Dallas Morning News “The We Decade, Rebirth of Community” A cutting edge reporting effort on civic re-engagement, a new national trend that is crucial to the revival of public life. “In March of 1995, the Dallas Morning News ran an eight-day series on coming together, on how people in communities all across the country […]
Winners
[ The Argus Leader ] [ The Kansas City Star ] 1996 Batten Awards The Charlotte Observer (NC) “Taking Back our Neighborhoods” A 19-month in-depth series on crime in nine city neighborhoods, in which the newspaper took an activist role by asking residents in the crime-ridden neighborhoods to report on the root causes of crime and to participate […]
Honorable Mentions
[ The Kansas City Star ] [ St. Paul Pioneer Press ] 1997 Batten Awards The Riverside Press-Enterprise, CA “Through the Prism” The O.J. Simpson verdict hit close to home in Riverside County. The reaction exposed a deep gulf between blacks and whites over what was believable in the U.S. legal system. Then another incident sparked what became […]
The Challenge Is To Reclaim Our Moral Authority And Ask: How Do We Know What We Know?
1997 Batten Awards Speech Cole Campbell Editor, St. Louis Post-Dispatch The movie, Il Postino or The Postman, tells the story of a postal carrier in a little fishing village who falls into the orbit of the poet Pablo Neruda. The whole community falls into Pablo Neruda’s sway. And there’s this scene in the movie where everyone is […]
The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, NY “Make Us Safe: Teens Talk about Violence”
1997 Batten Award Winner “For a bold and comprehensive approach to the critical issue of teen violence…” When a 12-year-old girl stabbed a 13-year-old girl outside a local middle school reporters and editors sat around the newsroom and said: “What makes kids do that? Have kids changes since we were kids?” The media partners, […]
The Peoria Journal Star, IL “The Leadership Challenge”
1997 Batten Award Winner “For an innovative, solutions-oriented approach to a subtle, but pervasive problem: the decline of civic leadership…” With the biggest exodus from the U.S. Senate since the Civil War, the lowest number of contested races in the Illinois primary in three decades, and the failure of neighborhood associations, school boards […]