Ithaca College

The Park Center for Independent Media is happy to announce that its fourth annual Izzy Award for outstanding achievement in independent media will be shared by journalist Sharif Abdel Kouddous and the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) public interest newsgroup.

Abdel Kouddous is being recognized for his riveting firsthand reporting from the Tahrir Square people's uprising in Egypt, where he was frequently in danger. CMD is being honored for its illuminating work in probing into the collusion of lawmakers with the American Legislative Exchange Council, a secretive organization funded by corporations to write or influence the writing of laws on both the state and federal levels.

The awards will be given at a ceremony at IC on April 10, at which both Abdel Kouddous (right) and CMD executive director Lisa Graves will speak. Details will be announced in the next few weeks.

The Izzy Award is named after dissident journalist I.F. “Izzy” Stone, who launched his muckraking newsletter I.F. Stone’s Weekly in 1953 during the height of the McCarthy witch hunts. Stone, who died in 1989, exposed government deceit and corruption while championing civil liberties, racial justice, and international diplomacy. Read more and find links.