3.10.2008

Thanking the Academy...

That's nice: I won a 2007 Frank Premack Public Affairs Journalism Award for "excellence in opinion journalism" for my April 2007 Minnesota Monitor story on jailed San Francisco videoblogger Josh Wolf. In a press release, the judging panel wrote: “This article was very timely—it raises important questions about a key piece of our democracy—the fourth estate. It asked ‘What is the future of journalism?’ and “What do we make of all these new voices?’”

Update 3/14/08: Josh Wolf writes in with a comment:
There is one aspect of the story, that I'm assuming you didn't know when you wrote it that I think may alter the perception of some of my critics who felt that I was withholding evidence. Although I refused to turn over the material to the US Attorney, I did, on several occasions offer the judge an in-camera review to assess the evidentiary value of my out-takes. The US Attorney objected and the judge refused our request.

My case was about a lot of things, the rights of an independent press being central to the story, but the way that the Federal government acted in an unreasonable and unwarranted manner over an issue that should have been outside their jurisdiction is, in many ways, just as important.

7 comments:

Chuck Olsen said...

Congrats!

Anonymous said...

Nice to see you get some recognition for the good work you do.

maxsparber said...

Yeah, I got one of them Premack Awards too. And, boy, did it turn my life around.

Paul Schmelzer said...

Like 360 degrees around? So you're facing the same direction as when you started?

Ted Sherarts said...

eyeteen's gotta be good. I look at it almost every day.

Anonymous said...

Congratulations on the award, I had read your article when you wrote it, but didn't comment at the time. I found it to be quite reasonable and assess the situation from sound perspective.

There is one aspect of the story, that I'm assuming you didn't know when you wrote it that I think may alter the perception of some of my critics who felt that I was withholding evidence. Although I refused to turn over the material to the US Attorney, I did, on several occasions offer the judge an in-camera review to assess the evidentiary value of my out-takes. The US Attorney objected and the judge refused our request.

My case was about a lot of things, the rights of an independent press being central to the story, but the way that the Federal government acted in an unreasonable and unwarranted manner over an issue that should have been outside their jurisdiction is, in many ways, just as important.

Paul Schmelzer said...

Thanks for the note, Josh. I'll add it into the post above, and I'll use the new information when discussing your case from here on out.