John Chancellor Award | Columbia Journalism School

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The John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism, founded in 1995, is presented each year to a reporter with courage and integrity for cumulative professional accomplishments. The prize honors the legacy of pioneering television correspondent and longtime NBC News anchor John Chancellor.

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Ginger Thompson - 2019 John Chancellor Award Winner

Ginger Thompson, an investigative reporter and foreign correspondent, is the recipient of the 2019 John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism. As a senior reporter at ProPublica, she primarily writes about the United States’ fight against international drug cartels and the human consequences of that fight. In 2018, Thompson obtained secretly recorded audio of sobbing immigrant children who had been separated from their parents as part of the Trump administration’s Zero Tolerance border policy. Two days after the audio’s release, the administration retreated from the policy. A federal judge ruled against the policy a week later.

Read the full announcement.

About

The recipient of the $50,000 John Chancellor Award is selected each year by a distinguished panel of journalists who look across the media landscape to identify a reporter who may not be widely known by the public but who is highly respected within the profession for the caliber of his or her work.

The award was established in 1995 by Ira A. Lipman, founder of Guardsmark, LLC, one of the world's largest security service firms. Lipman provided a gift to Columbia University to support the John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism and to fund scholarships at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. The Chancellor Scholarships provide significant financial aid to students who have the leadership qualities exemplified by John Chancellor.

Ira Lipman became a lifelong friend of John Chancellor after the two met in Little Rock, Ark. in 1957. Chancellor, the NBC News correspondent in Little Rock, was reporting on the desegregation struggle at Central High School, and Lipman became Chancellor’s trusted source. Shining a national spotlight on this gripping regional story, the quality of Chancellor’s informed and insightful reporting propelled him to national attention. He became an anchor of NBC’s Today program and an anchor and commentator for NBC Nightly News. Chancellor is best remembered for the depth of his reporting and his rare personal grace and civility. Lipman subsequently founded Guardsmark, LLC.

The Chancellor Scholarships were awarded for the first time in August 2005, and are currently providing financial assistance for M.S. students. The criteria for scholarship assistance are financial need, academic achievement, and commitment to leadership in print or broadcast journalism.

Ira Lipman passed away on September 16, 2019 at his home in New York City.

How to Enter

The 2019 John Chancellor Award is closed for nominations.

To be entered for consideration, journalists must be nominated. The nominator will need to fill out the Chancellor Application form.

For print nominations: a pdf file with legible pages of the nomination material is recommended. For broadcast nominations: a list of working permanent links to programming is recommended.

Required Supporting Materials:

A nominating letter by someone other than the journalist that includes a brief summary of journalistic accomplishments. The Chancellor Board looks for sustained journalistic accomplishments over time, where the journalist’s reporting as a whole is greater than any single story he or she may have covered. Please explain the impact of the reporting.
Nominations may have up to three letters of support.
Resumé or CV, including any major awards received.
Provide 5-10 examples of the person's best work:

Newspaper/Magazine Nominee: 5-10 significant newspaper or magazine stories by the nominee. Please link to stories or include PDFs. If sending PDFs please include articles in the original layout, if possible. Photocopies of PDFs must be easy to read.

Broadcast/TV or Radio Nominee: 5-10 significant broadcast stories by the nominee. TV and radio stories should be submitted just as they aired, without reediting. Contact the Chancellor Award office for coverage of breaking news stories, if applicable. Please provide links to stories.

This award is intended for a journalist whose principal audience is in the U.S. If the original reporting is in a language other than English, transcripts or subtitles in English must be provided.

Past Winners

See past winners:

Year	Honoree	Title	Organization	Notable Work
2018	Nikole Hannah-Jones	Staff Writer	The New York Times Magazine	"The Resegregation of Jefferson County," "Choosing a School for My Daughter in a Segregated City," "A Prescription for More Black Doctors," "The Problem We All Live With," "Living Apart," "Segregation Now"
2017	Dan Balz	Chief correspondent	The Washington Post	"There are three branches of government, and two are in distress," "Donald Trump, America's first independent president," "Why does Hillary Rodham Clinton want to be president?" "Hard choices and challenges follow triumph," "Nation braces for a long count," "In week two, velocity of allegations slows and a Clinton survival strategy emerges"
2016	Gwen Ifill	Co-anchor and managing editor of PBS NewsHour and moderator and managing editor of Washington Week with Gwen Ifill	PBS	“PBS NewsHour Democratic Debate," “America After Charleston," “Political Divide on Immigration Reform Looms Over Families," “Obama: Diplomatic Solution to Syria ‘Overwhelmingly My Preference'," “March on Washington 50th Anniversary"
2015	Alissa J. Rubin	Paris bureau chief	The New York Times	“Afghan Policewomen Struggle Against Culture,” “On a Helicopter, Going Down: Inside a Lethal Crash in Iraq,” “Afghan Rape Case Turns Focus on Local Police,” “How Baida Wanted to Die,” “In a Cold Room, Memories of a Life of Flowers.”
2014	Martin Smith	Writer, producer, correspondent	FRONTLINE, RAIN Media	“Money, Power & Wall Street,” “Obama’s War,” “Heat,” “Return of the Taliban,” “The Storm,” “Truth, War & Consequences”
2013	Richard Engel	Chief foreign correspondent	NBC News	“Inside North Korea,” “Arab Spring - Egypt,” “War Zone Diary, "I can't keep this up much longer," “Syrian refugees look to America for help,” “Interivew with President George W. Bush (2008),” “Richard Engel rides with combat troops leaving Iraq”
2012	Maria Hinojosa	News anchor and reporter	PBS, NPR and CNN	"America By the Numbers," "Frontline, Lost In Detention," "The Bronx River," "Who's Helping Our Wounded Vets?"
2011	David Evans	Senior writer	Bloomberg Markets	“Duping the Families of Fallen Soldiers,” "The Hidden Pension Fiasco,” “The Ratings Charade,” “How Test Companies Fail Your Kids,” “Big Pharma’s Shameful Secret”
2010	Robert Siegel	Host	NPR’s All Things Considered	“Michael Chertoff Defends Rescue Efforts in New Orleans,” “Troy & Tovan,” “Childhood on Trial,” “Covering the Chengdu Earthquake”
2009	Ken Armstrong	Investigative reporter	The Seattle Times	"Failure of the Death Penalty in Illinois," "Trial & Error," "Victory and Ruins," "School district ignored warnings, then silenced girls fondled by teacher"
2008	Jane Mayer	Staff Writer	The New Yorker
2008	Andrew C. Revkin	Science Correspondent	The New York TImes
2007	Ofra Bikel	Producer	FRONTLINE	“The Case for Innocence,” “An Ordinary Crime,” “The O.J. Verdict,” “Requiem for Frank Lee Smith” “Saving Elian,” “The Unexpected Candidate”
2006	Henry Weinstein	Reporter	Los Angeles Times	“Democracy Now,” “Bay Area Indy Media,” “TruthDig,” “LA Observed,” “Take Back the Times,” “LA Times story on Henry Weinstein,” “CJR Daily ‘Henry Weinstein On What Great Journalism Can and Cannot Do’”
2005	Jerry Mitchell	Investigative Reporter	The Clarion-Ledger	“Jerry Mitchell interview on NPR’s Fresh Air,” “View Video of Award Ceremony”
2004	Linda Greenhouse	Reporter	The New York Times
2003	Mary McGrory	Reporter	Washington Post
2002	Jim Wooten	Senior Correspondent	ABC News
2000	John Herbers	Washington correspondent (Ret.)	The New York Times
2000	Claude Sitton	Editor (Ret.)	The News & Observer
1999	Paul Duke	Moderator (Ret.), “Washington Week in Review”	PBS
1998	John Kifner	Senior foreign correspondent	The New York Times
1997	Wilson F. “Bill” Minor	Correspondent	The Times-Picayune

Selection Committee

See judges:

Mary Chancellor	Chancellor Family
Jelani Cobb	Professor of Journalism	Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Steve Coll	Dean & Henry R. Luce Professor of Journalism	Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Hank Klibanoff	Director of the Journalism Program, James M. Cox Jr. Professor	Emory University
Nicholas Lemann	Joseph Pulitzer II and Edith Pulitzer Moore Professor of Journalism; Dean Emeritus	Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Ira A. Lipman	Founder	John Chancellor Award Guardsmark, LLC
Michele Norris	Former Host, "All Things Considered"	National Public Radio
Lynn Sherr	Former Correspondent	ABC News
Bill Wheatley	Former Executive Vice President	NBC News
Mark Whitaker	Former news executive	CNN, NBC News, and Newsweek

Contact

212-854-6468
cjsprizes@gmail.com

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