Gary Lewis photo, courtesy
of Janet Manko
Connecticut Council
on Freedom of Information award winners with their award plaques,
from left: Janet Manko, editor of The Lakeville (Conn.) Journal, winner
of the Stephen Collins Award; Robert Estabrook, retired editor and
publisher of the Lakeville Journal, presented a lifetime achievement
award; and Colleen Murphy, executive director of the Connecticut Freedom
of Information Commission, winner of the Bice Clemow Award.
Conn.
public-access council re-elects Scheffey as president
The Connecticut Council
on Freedom of Information re-elected Thomas Scheffey, senior writer
for the Connecticut Law Tribune of Hartford, Conn., as its president
at its annual meeting in Waterbury, Conn., June 17.
The group also presented
awards to three Connecticut journalists in recognition of their efforts
on behalf of freedom of information.
Other officers elected
were:
• Richard Ahles,
retired news director for WFSB-TV3 in Hartford and a columnist on
Connecticut topics, vice president.
•
James H. Smith, executive editor of the Bristol (Conn.) Press and
The Herald of New Britain, Conn., secretary.
G. Claude Albert, retired
managing editor of The Hartford Courant, has succeeded Chris Powell,
managing editor of the Journal Inquirer of Manchester, Conn., as the
council’s legislative chairman. Powell had been chairman for
six years.
Janet Manko, editor of
The Lakeville (Conn.) Journal, was awarded the council’s Stephen
Collins Award, named for the late editor of The News-Times of Danbury,
Conn.
Colleen Murphy, executive
director of the Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission, was
awarded the Bice Clemow Award, named for the late editor of the West
Hartford News.
Robert Estabrook, retired
editor and publisher of the Lakeville Journal, was presented with
a lifetime achievement award.
4
finalists named for N.E.-based environmental reporting award
The University of Rhode
Island’s Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting,
based in Narragansett, R.I., has joined the Grantham Foundation for
the Protection of the Environment, based in Boston, in naming four
finalists for this year’s Grantham Prize for Excellence in Reporting
on the Environment.
USA Today’s Blake
Morrison and Brad Heath have been recognized for their series, “The
Smokestack Effect,” which led to the federal Environmental Protection
Agency establishing a program to study industrial pollution’s
effect on air quality outside schools. The series produced information
that showed a dangerous overlap of industrial polluters and 127,800
U.S. schools, culled from government data and academic researchers.
Susanne Rust and Meg Kissinger
of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel were named finalists for their “Chemical
Fallout” series. Through database and peer-reviewed research
and information from scientists, the series showed that the Environmental
Protection Agency favored the chemical industry in its toxic chemicals
disclosure program and that companies have been allowed by the agency
to keep hazardous chemicals information, required by rules to be disclosed,
from the public.
Other finalists include
the six-part television series “e2: Transport,” created
by Tad Fettig, Karena Albers and Veronique Bernard, which was shown
on U.S. PBS affiliates, and Andrew Nikiforuk’s book “Tar
Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of the Continent.”
One of the finalists will
receive the main honor, which includes a $75,000 prize, and the three
runners-up will each get $5,000.
The winner of the Grantham
Prize, created in 2005, will be announced July 6. The finalists will
be recognized at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., at a seminar and
prize ceremony.
The items
above were written from a press release or published report by Jen
Slothower and Jennifer Skala, graduate students at the Northeastern
University School of Journalism and news staff coordinators for the
Bulletin.
