Ithaca College

The Park Center for Independent Media will host the 12th Izzy Award ceremony on October 28 at 6:00 p.m. EDT.  Named after I. F. “Izzy” Stone, the legendary 20th century journalist, this award recognizes outstanding achievement in independent media—journalism created outside traditional corporate structures. 

The ceremony will feature a speech from each of the Izzy recipients as they accept the award: Matt Taibbi, Lawrence Bartley for “News Inside,” and Carla Minet for Centro de Periodismo Investigativo. PCIM Director Raza Rumi will host the awards. Register on Zoom here.

This year, the Izzy Award recognizes Matt Taibbi for exceptional stories written throughout 2019 that tackled media bias, government misconduct, and the presidential campaign. He not only criticized conservative media, but liberal media for its empty ultra-partisanship that dodges conversations of corporate power. His partly reader-funded stories culminated in his book “Hate Inc.,” which the Izzy Award Judges call “original, irreverent, provocative, highly entertaining and, most of all, invariably based on hard digging.”

“News Inside,” the publication started in 2019 by The Marshall Project, is honored for its vital work of bringing curated reporting on criminal justice for circulation in prisons and jails. Initiated by Lawrence Bartley, who joined the Marshall Project in 2018 after serving 27 years in prison himself, the publication reaches more than 510 facilities in 38 states in the U.S. and Canada. Through “News Inside,” Bartley “delivers high-quality journalism to prisoners, with articles written by current and former inmates.” Bartley will accept this Izzy Award on behalf of the publication.

Finally, Puerto Rico’s Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (CPI, the Center for Investigative Journalism) is recognized for its impactful 2019 public interest reporting, including on the government’s negligent disaster preparedness policies and the true death toll Hurricane Maria exacted on the island. CPI also published “900 pages of damaging secret chats between Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rosselló and other top-level officials, sparking island-wide mass protests that ultimately brought down the governor” 11 days later. On behalf of CPI, Executive Director Carla Minet will accept the award.

The Izzy Award is named after I. F. Stone., the dissident journalist who launched I.F. Stone’s Weekly in 1953 and challenged McCarthyism, the Vietnam War, racial injustice and government deceit. This year’s judges include director of the Park Center for Independent Media Raza Rumi, former PCIM director and founder of FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting) Jeff Cohen, communications professor and author Robert W. McChesney, and Linda Jue, executive director and editor at the G. W. Williams Center for Independent Journalism.

Previous winners of the Izzy Award are Glenn Greenwald, Amy Goodman, Jeremy Scahill, Robert Scheer, City Limits, Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Center for Media and Democracy/“ALEC Exposed,” Mother Jones, John Carlos Frey, Nick Turse, Naomi Klein, David Sirota, Jamie Kalven, Brandon Smith, Inside Climate News/“Exxon: The Road Not Taken,” Shane Bauer, Seth Freed Wessler, Ari Berman, the producers of the “America Divided” series, Todd Miller, Lee Fang, Sharen Lerner, Dahr Jamail, Laura Flanders, Dave Lindorff, Aaron Maté, and Earth Island Journal.

The Park Center for Independent Media (PCIM), launched in 2008, is a center for the study of journalism-oriented media outlets that create and distribute content outside traditional corporate systems and news organizations. The Center examines the impact of independent media on journalism, democracy, society, and participatory cultures. 

The ceremony will take place virtually via Zoom on October 28 at 6:00 p.m. EDT. To attend, please register via Zoom. Join the Facebook event here. For more information on the Park Center for Independent Media, visit parkindymedia.org.

Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodation, please contact Brandy Hawley, 607-274-3590 or bhawley@ithaca.edu, as much in advance as possible.