Journalists will recognize their own this May by presenting three Payne Awards for Ethics in Journalism.
The awards, established in 1999 at the University’s School of Journalism and Communication by Ancil Payne, recognizes journalists and news organizations for “exceptionally principled behavior,” according to its Web site.
This year’s winners are the Phoenix New Times, The Spokesman-Review and the student editor of The Mount Observer, the campus newspaper at Mount Wachusett Community College in Gardner, Mass.
The Phoenix New Times received this year’s award in the News Organizations category, “which recognizes the institutional commitment of a news organization to serving the public interest, even when doing so puts the organization at risk,” according to the Web site. The two other categories are for individuals and collegiate media.
The New Times was nominated after publishing a cover story that exposed local law enforcement’s efforts to subpoena information about the “identity, purchasing habits and browsing proclivities” of its online readership, according to the story. Additionally, authorities tried to seize any notes, tapes and confidential sources from any reporter that had covered the local sheriff Joe Arpaio.
Executive Editor Michael Lacey and Chief Executive Officer Jim Larkin made the decision to write and publish the story knowing that they could face criminal prosecution for revealing sealed grand jury information.
Lacey and Larkin opened the story by saying, “It is, we fear, the authorities’ belief that what you are about to read here is against the law to publish. But there are moments when civil disobedience is merely the last option. We pray that our judgment is free of arrogance.”
Both Lacey and Larkin were arrested shortly after the story was released; less than 24 hours later public response forced the county’s district attorney to drop the grand jury probe and subpoenas and fire the special prosecutor responsible for issuing them, according to the Payne Award nomination letter.
“The certain outcome was the threat of going to jail, yet in the face of that they went forward,” the Payne Award judges said in a University press release.
Also in the News Organization category, The Spokesman-Review received its second Payne award, the first coming in 2005. The paper was recognized this year for initiating a critical audit of its coverage of a controversial development in downtown Spokane between 1994 and 2004. The newspaper’s publisher and president was also a principle developer in the site.
The audit concluded that the newspaper had not been as aggressive or ethical in its coverage of the development as it should have been, said Editor Steve Smith, who is a University graduate.
The newspaper then published the audit along with a public apology from Smith.
“Its a rare instance that a newspaper is willing to sort of open itself up to that level of in-depth scrutiny and allow an independent organization to evaluate its work. We applaud that effort,” said Tim Gleason, dean of the School of Journalism and Communication and Payne Award judge.
In the Collegiate Media category, Ashley Gough, editor of The Mount Observer, was recognized for investigating and later publishing a story about the disappearance of the campus newspapers off the stands. The issues contained an editorial “that portrayed the school’s president in a less than complimentary light,” said Gleason.
A police investigation of the incident revealed a security camera that showed the president of the college removing the newspapers from the stand.
During her investigation, Gough interviewed both the chief of police and the college’s president.
“I was nervous,” Gough told the Emerald. “It was the first real thing I had to do as editor of the paper … I wanted to do it right and not be biased in my reporting because I was a part of the story, but I wanted to be an objective reporter.”
The newspapers had disappeared twice from stands. The first time the papers were discovered in recycling bins on campus, Gough replaced them on the racks. The second disappearance occurred on the day of graduation, hours before Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick came to give a commencement speech on the campus.
There was no further investigation of the incident by local authorities.
A ceremony honoring this year’s award winners will be held on May 8 in the Papé Room of the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. The ceremony will begin at 10 a.m. and will be followed by a panel discussion about ethics in journalism. Gough and representatives from the Phoenix New Times and The Spokesman-Review will attend the ceremony, said Zanne Miller, director of communications at the journalism school.
Award winners are selected by a panel of judges from both the industry and academia.
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