Newhouse School Announces Winners In Fifth Annual Mirror Awards

The Newhouse School presented seven awards at the fifth annual Mirror Awards luncheon honoring excellence in media industry reporting.

The winners, chosen by a group of journalists and journalism educators, are:

• Best Single Article, Traditional Media: Gabriel Sherman, “Chasing Fox” (New York Magazine) -- The examined how the News Corp-owned network has affected the journalism at CNN and MSNBC.
• Best Single Article, Digital Media: Jim Hopkins, “All Shook Up” (Gannett Blog)
• Best Profile, Traditional Media: Ken Auletta, “The Networker” (The New Yorker)
• Best Profile, Digital Media: Joel Meares, “The Biggest Fish in Albany?” (Columbia Journalism Review)
• Best Commentary, Traditional Media: James Wolcott (Vanity Fair)
• Best Commentary, Digital Media: Eric Alterman (Center for American Progress) -- Alterman disturbed the air of industry self-congratulations by urging the audience to "stop treating Fox News as though it's news. It's not." Applause was mixed with disapproving murmurs after he added that those who take Fox seriously "allow it to corrupt the news ecosystem."
• Best In-depth Piece, Traditional Media: Mary Van de Kamp Nohl, “Paper Money” (Milwaukee Magazine) -- She showed how the publisher of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel impoverished many of its employees by encouraging them to buy its stock -- which lost nearly 98% of its value after the company went public in 2003. "They hired a PR director to handle me," she said. "It's a sad commentary on the priorities of this particular business."

In addition, the school honored Brian L. Roberts, chairman and CEO of Comcast, with the Fred Dressler Achievement Award, and Dennis Crowley ’98 and Naveen Selvadurai, co-founders of Foursquare, with the i-3 award for impact, innovation and influence. Jeffrey Bewkes, chairman and CEO of Time Warner Inc., presented the Dressler Award. Ralph Roberts, founder of Comcast and chairman emeritus of its board of directors, accepted the award on Brian Roberts’ behalf.

Clay Shirky, new media expert and author of “Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations,” presented the i-3 award.