Wednesday, May 21, 2014

EXTRA CREDIT: The Aronson Awards

I received the following email from a dear professor of mine, and decided this would be a wonderful opportunity to meet one of New York City's, and the nation's best media writers:

Dear all,

You're receiving this because you're either a journalist, a friend, or a social justice enthusiast who I believe would enjoy attending this event I've been working on for the past several months. 


On Monday, April 28th, the committee I am chairing this year will recognize the indomitable David Carr with a career achievement award and Andrea Elliott for her tremendous 2013 series for the Times, "Invisible Child," among others (see postcard below).


Held at Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt's elegant Upper East Side brownstone in an intimate, 100-seat auditorium, this will be a unique opportunity to hear about the future of investigative journalism from some of the field's top practitioners. 


Rebecca Carroll of XOJane (and previously the Black Voices editor at HuffPo and my own editor during our time at The Independent Film and Video Monthly) will host the event.

Feel free to write about it, tell friends, and of course, RSVP! 

Hope to see you on the 28th.

Best,
David

From the time the event began to the time it ended, I was in a constant process of internalizing all of the information I could as the attendees were truly some of the best writers in town. My interest in journalism and social justice peaked in the aftermath of my acquisition of an internship at NBC 4 New York, one that unexpectedly went from being a semester-long program, to an internship that lasted for three consecutive semesters. During my tenure, I was responsible for monitoring coverage on the station, including coverage written by David Carr.

Conveniently, Carr was to be recognized with a career achievement award that evening, and I was not planning on missing such a unique opportunity to ask him all of the questions I pondered regarding net neutrality and other topics he constantly wrote about in the media column of The New York Times.

Little did I know, I was going to be in the presence of journalists and social justice activists that were just as interesting and who covered such topics as the politics of business in the Middle East via Terrance McCoy's Home Invasion, investigative stories via Chris Hamby's Breathless and Burdened, and perhaps one of the most heart-felt - poverty issues via Andrea Elliott's Invisible Child.

Al in all, a fruitful event all around. I urge social justice activists and journalism geeks at large to attend future events organized by Hunter College's Department of Film & Media Studies - a great way to get an inside look into how these stories came about, and a wonderful networking opportunity with some of the industry's top writers!

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