Please check their website for the resources.

RTNDA’s website has all the information. The deadline to apply for the 2016-2017 award is May 31.

She is reporting for English-language “The Cambodia Daily.”

Her work has focused on human rights and safety issues, including a look at how cheap helmets make the country’s safety rules futile. In a recent story, she also looked at the fate of a center serving the capital’s homeless and mentally ill populations.

“It is a very small solace to learn that Jihad John may have been killed by the U.S. government, the Foleys said in a statement. “His death does not bring Jim back. If only so much effort had been given to finding and rescuing Jim and the other hostages who were subsequently murdered by ISIS, they might be alive today”

The James W. Foley Legacy Foundation “is committed to defending the rights of every American citizen by advocating for the safe release of Americans kidnapped abroad, advancing safety measures for freelance journalists in conflict zones, and providing underprivileged youth with access to education,” they said,

The report is an excellent compendium of information about contemporary national security reporting in America.  It draws some of its information from the book “Whistleblowers, Leaks and the Media: The First Amendment and National Security” that was published last year. The book was compiled and edited by Medill Adjunct Lecturer Paul Rosenzweig and Medill professors Ellen Shearer and Timothy J. McNulty.   Rosenzweig also was interviewed for the PEN/America report and is quoted in the report

See the full list of 2015 MRE award recipients here.

(Video by Divya J. Verma for the Medill NSJI)

View the full text of the speech here.

U.S. Navy Admiral Harry B. Harris Jr.’s Q&A session with MRE conference attendees:

MRE_Keynote_Q&A from Medill Washington on Vimeo.

(Videos by Divya J. Verma for the Medill NSJI)

The Joe Galloway Award

David Wood of Huffington Post for a powerful, fascinating, thoroughly reported, humanized and particularly well-written, well-produced three-part multimedia package examining the prevalence, complexity and impact of “moral injury” that plagues so many who have fought sought since 9/11. “Moral injury is a relatively new concept that seems to describe what many feel: a sense that their fundamental understanding of right and wrong has been violated, and the grief, numbness or guilt that often ensues,” Wood wrote in his introduction to the series. “However we individually feel about the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, these enduring moral wounds, to young Americans who fought on our behalf, must be counted among the ultimate costs.”

The James Crawley Award

Lance Bacon, reporter; Andrew deGrandpre, digital news director; Alex Neill, executive editor of Military Times, for their investigation into whether a Marine Corps order that removed Marine Corps Times publications from prime locations at the front of base exchanges around the world was the result of reporting it was doing “detailing whistleblower allegations suggesting the service’s commandant, Gen. James Amos, abused his authority and interfered in several high-profile criminal cases.” The order was eventually rescinded and the papers returned to the prime locations, while further Military Times reporting “obtained and authenticated emails linking Amos to the newsstand move, raised troubling questions about the Marine Corps’ attempt to limit troops’ access to an independent news source.”


Overseas Large Newspapers Category:  Betsy Hiel, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review foreign correspondent Betsy Hiel filed a series of eye-opening, deeply reported stories from Iraq in 2014 detailing the people and conditions as ISIS swept toward Baghdad. One of the first Western reporters on the ground after ISIS invaded, she reported on Christians who found temporary refuge from ISIS in an ancient monastery before fleeing as the terrorist group advanced; she explained Kurdish soldiers’ belief that the next target of ISIS is the United States; and she shed light on the sectarian divisions that stand in the way of achieving peace in Iraq.

Overseas Small Newspapers Category: Drew Brooks, Fayetteville Observer

Drew Brooks’ detailed and emotionally stirring series of stories on the Green Berets from Fort Bragg who led the war effort in Afghanistan for 13 years provided an inside glimpse of the lives of Green Beret soldiers deployed to Afghanistan as well as an analysis of why they ended up in such a dominant role and the toll of large numbers of casualties.

Domestic Large Newspapers Category: Mike Wereschagin, Adam Smeltz and Carl Prine, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

The two-part series by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review disclosed that emails and documents obtained through a FOIA filed by the paper show that congressional testimony given by Veterans Affairs officials investigating a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak that left at least six dead in Pittsburgh was, at the least, obfuscatory and basically contradicted information in the private documents. The work is investigative reporting at its best.

Domestic Small Newspapers Category: This award is shared by Meghann Myers of the Navy Times and Hope Hodge Seck of the Marine Corps Times

Meghann Myers of Navy Times and Hope Hodge Seck of Marine Corps Times separately covered two aspects of a critical gender issues facing today’s military.

Meghann Myers revealed that some of the first women to serve in the submarine force were secretly filmed undressing by their shipmates. The Navy Times story, first reported online, drew immediate attention by Pentagon officials and created national attention.  The commander of the submarine force condemned the tapings as a “breach of trust” and Myers pursued the story and its consequences not only for the sailors but also for the entire service.

Hope Hodge Seck wrote a more complex but equally important Marine Corp Times story about concern that the Marine Corps is under so much pressure to prosecute alleged sexual assaults that the accused are no longer innocent until proved guilty. Sensitive to the reality that sexual assault cases were too easily dismissed in the past, Seck wove actual legal cases with new policy initiatives to explain how the Marines are trying to deal with a significant problem.

Photographer Small Paper Category: Andrew Craft, Fayetteville Observer

Andrew Craft’s collection of domestic and overseas images give a sense of dimension, depth and flexibility as a visual storyteller. Entries included a well-composed, solemnly powerful image of a flag-draped casket being carried; a playful shot of an Army officer horsing around with his young sons before heading on a 9-month deployment and a wide landscape shot of a soldier standing guard over the rugged terrain in Kabul.

Commentary: Marketta Davis, Pensacola News Journal

Marketta Davis is a military brat and military wife whose Pensacola News Journal column, “Military notes,” has an authentic, all-in-the-family tone that is both engaging and enlightening. Writing on everything from stolen valor issues to a 100-year-old veteran reminiscing about World War II, Davis is open in sharing her reactions and feelings and then translating them into larger lessons about military life.

Domestic, Large Broadcast Category: ESPN

ESPN’s compelling Outside the Lines,“Friend Who Fired,” told the story of the Army Rangers involved in the fatal accident that killed Ranger and professional football player Pat Tillman. None of the Army Rangers who fired upon him spoke publicly about the episode until ESPN found Steven Elliott, who agreed to break the silence. William Weinbaum is the producer; Mike Fish and John Barr are the reporters.

Honorable mention: Chas Henry’s “Almost Equal: The U. S Military Three Years After Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” at 99.1 WNEW radio.

Online Reporting: Jeremy Schwartz, Austin-American Statesman

Jeremy Schwartz’ “Lost Opportunity” explores the “failure of good intentions” surrounding an expensive, powerful mobile MRI that was believed to be among the most powerful in the world and was planned to scan the brains of troops before, and after, combat, as part of overall traumatic brain injury and post traumatic stress syndrome research by the Veterans Administration as part of its $2 billion in yearly research spending. A “fiasco” is what it proved to be, leading to an “inglorious decline” that included no appreciable research, few actual scans, a chronic lack of technical expertise and a key fatal flaw: moving what was to be a portable machine meant for several bases and hospitals required expensive re-calibration after each move, so it stayed put. Now, “The scanner idles 24 hours a day because it’s more expensive to turn an MRI machine off and on than to keep it running.” One use suggested for the unit that houses it: Housing for lab rats. The online package is crisp, well-written and illustrated and nicely designed with intuitive navigation and flow.  Given the topic, it could well have been deadly dull and bureaucratic, but was not in the least; instead, it was driven by good context, insight, perspective and tight writing.

Blogging: Beth Ford Roth, Home Post

Beth Ford Roth’s “Home Post” blog entry included a diverse and interesting collection of posts, ranging from whether Marines should be able to roll up their sleeves (wives, the blog says, find this sexy; the Marines declared it is OK again to roll them up); an essay from a dad whose sailor son was lost as sea; and a post about famous people who fought on D-Day.

The Summer 2015 National Security Journalism Data/Watchdog Workshop

 This Saturday, July 11, 2015

We’ll be providing a full day’s worth of intensive, hands-on training that focuses on how to use data, documents and the Internet for security reporting at the local, state and national level. The workshop, featuring trainers from IRE and NICAR, its National Institute for Computer Assisted Reporting, will be hosted by Medill in its Washington, D.C. newsroom at 1325 G St. NW, Suite 730, Washington, DC.

The program will run from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., with coffee and bagels for breakfast and sandwiches, chips and drinks for lunch. All for a registration fee of $15. We will cap this event at 35 reporters, so RSVP now by sending an email to tiffany.roberts@northwestern.edu with the subject line Medill/IRE National Security Journalism Data/Watchdog Workshop. Those registered to attend will be sent more details ahead of time, including data sets to upload so you’re ready to go.

Agenda and topics:

9:00 am – 10:30 am  – How to Use Data in National Security Reporting, Analysis and Storytelling

10:30 am – 11:45 am  – How to turbo-charge your data reporting, analysis and publication with IRE’s innovative DocumentCloud

11:45 am to 12:15 pm –Lunch and Introduction to Excel: How to use it, importing data for analysis

12:15 pm to 2 pm –  Introduction to data, including identifying good data for analysis, how to sort and filter data and an introduction to functions

2 pm to 2:45 pm  – Introduction to pivot tables

2:45 pm to 3 pm – Data journalism beyond excel: What is possible with database programs?

Our instructors are (alphabetically): 

Anthony DeBarros, IRE’s director of Product Development for DocumentCloud, travels nationally to provide training and education re: the open-source tool. As director of Interactive Applications for Gannett Digital, he led a team that built data-driven interactives for investigations, elections and the Gannett platform as well as publishing tools for the company’s journalists. Tony also spent 15 years with USA TODAY as a database editor and investigative journalist.

Aaron Kessler, a reporter for the New York Times based in Washington, writes about business, autos and related policy issues. He’s spent the last decade as a reporter using data to investigate a wide variety of financial issues, including terrorist financing and other security issues. He was a[masked] Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Business & Economics – a program for journalists to enroll in a year of MBA courses at Columbia Business School. His work has been honored with numerous national awards, and he has twice been a finalist for the Loeb Award, business journalism’s highest honor.

Ron Nixon, a reporter and data journalism specialist at the New York Times, has covered stories ranging from the U.S. role in the Arab Spring to companies violating the Iran Sanctions Act to lobbying by several former high ranking government officials in the Reagan Administration on behalf of the coup government in Honduras. He was also training director for IRE, and his deep experience reporting internationally led Ron to establish The Ujima Project, an online portal of documents and data that allows journalists around the world to access information that may be restricted in their countries.

Steven Rich, the database editor for the investigations unit at The Washington Post. While at The Post, he’s worked on numerous security-related projects, and was a member of the reporting team awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for NSA revelations. Steven is also a recently elected member of IRE’s Board of Directors and a former staffer there based at IRE headquarters in Missouri.

Margot Williams, the research editor for Investigations at FirstLook Media’s The Intercept. During her career at The Washington Post, New York Times, NPR and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, she has pursued jihadists online and detainees who died in U.S. immigration detention, investigated Iraq war contractors and followed the money (and private jets) of mayors, governors, senators, presidential candidates, and ex-presidents. During 14 years at The Post, she was a member of two Pulitzer Prize-winning teams, including in 2001 for national coverage of terrorism.

The Medill National Journalism Security Initiative, begun in January 2009 with the support of the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, offers a sequence of courses that equip graduate and undergraduate journalism students with the knowledge and skills to report on national security issues in ways that have relevance and meaning to a variety of audiences. It also undertakes an annual investigative project with 10 students and a professional media partner, and sponsors a conference for journalists to get a series of briefings on the most pressing national security issues and to share ideas on covering them. And it provides training and background materials on nationalsecurityzone.org as well as webinars to enhance its outreach to working reporters around the country.

Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. is a grassroots nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the quality of investigative reporting. IRE was formed in 1975 to create a forum in which journalists throughout the world could help each other by sharing story ideas, newsgathering techniques and news sources.
IRE provides members access to thousands of reporting tip sheets and other materials through its resource center and hosts conferences and specialized training throughout the country. Programs of IRE include the National Institute for Computer Assisted Reporting and DocumentCloud.

They will spend three months on an investigative and enterprise multimedia project that focuses on whether the United States and the global community are ready for a worldwide health emergency, ranging from another Ebola-type virus to a full-blown pandemic that could potentially kill millions of people. It will be done in conjunction with professional media partners, including VICE News.

The graduate students selected to receive $7,500 McCormick scholarships are Dawnn Anderson, Adriana Cargill, Tanni Deb, Ezra Kaplan, Nicole McGee, Aditya Prakash, Lydia Randall and Kulwant Saluja.

The reporting team will be supervised by Josh Meyer, director of education and outreach for the Medill National Security Journalism Initiative and Medill’s McCormick Lecturer in National Securities Studies.

“This is a fantastic team of highly skilled and talented young journalists, and I’m excited to work with them on an issue of such huge national — and international — importance,” said Meyer, a 20-year veteran of the Los Angeles Times who joined Medill in 2010. “Given that the Ebola virus raised serious questions about holes in the global disease surveillance and response safety net, this topic couldn’t be more timely.”

Ellen Shearer, William F. Thomas Professor of Journalism and co-director of the Medill National Security Journalism Initiative, said she is “thrilled by the possibilities for great reporting and storytelling that this terrific group of students affords us.”

This year’s effort will be the sixth in which Medill collaborates with national media partners to publish a project across all media platforms while emphasizing the use of innovative multimedia and interactive journalistic techniques.

The project, formally known as the National Security Reporting Project, will focus on whether governments and health organizations are taking appropriate steps to respond to a fast-moving and potentially catastrophic virus or other communicable disease. Experts have been warning for years that the lack of U.S. preparedness and funding for responding to emerging global health problems, including Ebola, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and the avian flu, are helping create one of the most urgent security threats the world has ever seen.

Despite being contained relatively quickly, last year’s devastating Ebola outbreak raised serious questions about whether an effective system of surveillance and response is in place, and whether huge advances in technology are being incorporated into that health safety net.

Experts say the conditions are ripe for another pandemic, or mass outbreak of disease across international borders. With globalization and the ease of international travel, the potential for pandemics to spread far, wide and fast is greater than ever, causing widespread death, destruction, economic chaos and political destabilization. Throughout history, such outbreaks have killed between 300 and 500 million people, according to best estimates. Students will travel globally to report out this story in its many forms.

The fifth quarter specialization program in national security reporting, launched in 2010, is part of Medill’s larger National Security Journalism Initiative, funded by the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.

Recent topics have included “Hunger Pains,” a comprehensive multimedia series about problems in the U.S. global food aid program that was done in a collaboration with USA Today, and “Deadly Debris,” about the lethal legacy of U.S. landmines and cluster munitions that remain scattered around the world, which was published by GlobalPost. The first National Security Reporting Project in 2010, “Global Warning,” was on the global security implications posed by climate and environmental change. It was published by The Washington Post, distributed by the McClatchy News Service and won a prestigious national award from the Online News Association. All of the projects have helped students launch rewarding and high profile careers.

For more about the Medill National Security Journalism Initiative, check out its website at www.nationalsecurityzone.org.