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From left, 2018 Worth Bingham Prize winner David McSwane; 2019 I.F. Stone Medal recipient Clara Jeffery; 2018 Worth Bingham Prize winner Andrew Chavez; 2018 Taylor Family Award winners and finalists Zeke Faux, Zachary Mider and Kathleen Flynn; 2019 I.F. Stone Medal recipient Monika Bauerlein; and 2018 Taylor Family Award finalist Kathleen McGrory. Lisa Abitbol
Awards & Conferences
Louis M. Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism
The Nieman Foundation presents annual journalism awards to news organizations and journalists who have produced exceptional work in several categories. In honoring journalistic excellence, the foundation helps draw attention to innovative research, reporting and storytelling and share the lessons learned from groundbreaking reporting projects in print, on air and online.
Moderator Aleszu Bajak (left) leads a panel with youth climate activists Saya Ameli Hajebi, Amalia Hochman and James Healy during Nieman's 2019 Covering Climate Change conference Lisa Abitbol
Recent honorees include Rukhshana Media , an online news agency that covers the women of Afghanistan, winner of the 2022 Louis M. Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism . The Nieman class of 2022 selected the Rukhshana team, led by founder Zahra Joya, in recognition of their courageous and difficult work under the Taliban.
Recipients of the 2022 Lukas Prize Project Awards include Andrea Elliott, winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize for “Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City,” Jane Rogoyska, winner of the Mark Lynton History Prize for “Surviving Katyń: Stalin’s Polish Massacre and the Search for Truth,” and the two J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award winners Roxanna Asgarian for “We Were Once a Family: The Hart Murder-Suicide and the System Failing Our Kids” and May Jeong for “The Life: Sex, Work, and Love in America.” Patrick Radden Keefe is the Lukas Book Prize finalist for “Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty” and Katie Booth is the Lynton History Prize finalist is for “The Invention of Miracles: Language, Power, and Alexander Graham Bell’s Quest to End Deafness.”
The Associated Press won the 2020 Worth Bingham Prize for Investigative Journalism for “ Fruits of Labor ,” an exhaustive two-year investigation by Associated Press reporters Margie Mason and Robin McDowell into widespread abuses in the palm oil industry. The reporters interviewed more than 130 current and former workers from eight countries at two dozen companies to uncover the dangerous conditions laborers face on large palm oil plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia. Their reporting revealed an industry in which poor and vulnerable harvesters are regularly exposed to toxic agrochemicals and face serious hazards ranging from trafficking and rape to child labor and slavery. The reporting has led to vital reforms and import bans.
The Tampa Bay Times is winner of the 2020 Taylor Family Award for Fairness in Journalism for “ Targeted ,” an investigation by reporters Kathleen McGrory and Neil Bedi into a police program that for years monitored, intimidated and harassed families in Pasco County Florida. Finalists are ProPublica for “ Grace: A Failure in Michigan’s Juvenile Justice System ,” which investigated the case of a 15-year-old Black girl who was jailed for not doing her schoolwork and the deeply flawed juvenile justice system that allowed her detention, and USA TODAY for its “ Torn Apart ” series, which showed how the state of Florida used a child protection law to take children from families, often without sufficient cause, and put them directly in harm’s way in a poorly monitored foster care system.
Chicago-based author and journalist Jamie Kalven , founder of the Invisible Institute, won the 2022 I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence . Through his investigations and projects, he has documented police abuse and impunity, fought for access to vital public records and told the stories of many of the underserved and underrepresented residents in society.
In addition to presenting annual journalism awards, the Nieman Foundation regularly organizes conferences for journalists based around a central theme. In November 2019, the Nieman Foundation and the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (Harvard C-CHANGE) co-hosted “ Covering Climate Change ,” an intensive training workshop for journalists on covering climate change and related issues.
Together with University of Chicago Institute of Politics, Nieman made co-hosted the 2020 Campaign Journalism Conference for journalists covering the 2020 U.S. presidential election. The training took place in April 2019 in Chicago. In March 2018, Nieman hosted “ Covering Nuclear Issues: A Workshop for Journalists ,” a three-day conference that brought a diverse group of reporters, academics, researchers and practitioners together to help journalists deepen their reporting skills and expand their thinking around nuclear issues. And in March 2017, the Nieman Foundation presented another workshop for journalists, “ Covering Housing. ”
Nieman additionally organized and hosted “ Power: Accountability and Abuse ,” a two-day celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Pulitzer Prizes in September 2016 that featured Pulitzer-winning performances and discussions centered on excellence in journalism and the arts.