Ithaca College

Nominations for the Izzy Award for calendar year 2015 are now open. The annual honor for outstanding achievement in independent media, named after legendary journalist I. F. “Izzy” Stone, is a project of the Park Center for Independent Media (PCIM).

This year’s Izzy Award will be given for work published, broadcast or posted in 2015 by an independent media outlet, journalist or producer. The award may relate to a single piece or a body of work. Journalists, academics, members of the campus community and the public at large may submit nominations by the January 18, 2016, deadline. The winner will be announced early next spring, with an award ceremony to follow.

“The decline — financially and often ethically — of corporate media has left a void that is being filled by journalists who work in the independent media sector,” said PCIM director Jeff Cohen. “The Izzy Award honors the best of these journalists who are giving in-depth coverage to issues and stories neglected by conglomerated media, from environmental degradation to human rights abuses to misconduct by corporate and political leaders.”

The 2014 award was shared by author Naomi Klein (for her columns and book This Changes Everything) and investigative journalist David Sirota (for reporting on corruption and collusion in the $3 trillion U.S. pension fund industry).

In 1953, during the height of the anti-communist witch hunts, Stone launched I. F. Stone’s Weekly, through which he challenged McCarthyism, official deception, war and racial bigotry. In 1999, a poll of prominent journalists and academics ranked the publication as number 16 among the “Top 100 Works of Journalism in the United States in the 20th Century.” Ithaca College houses a unique collection of mementos from Stone, who died in 1989.

Nominations should be submitted via a brief e-mail (250 words or less) that includes supporting web links (no more than six) and/or attached materials to Brandy Hawley at bhawley@ithaca.edu.

For more details go here.