On April 15, 2019 students, faculty and staff came together to honor a Duke alum and Duke undergraduate students for their journalism. The awards included the Futrell Award for Outstanding Achievement in Communications and Journalism presented to a Duke alum, The Melcher Family Award for Excellence in Journalism, and the new Fischer-Zernin Award for Local Journalism. The 2018-19 honorees are:
The Futrell Award
Susan Taylor Martin, reporter and editor, Tampa Bay Times
The Melcher Family Ward for Excellence I Journalism
First place: Julia Donheiser ’19, for At off-campus bars, some Duke students describe a culture of sexual misconduct, College Town, March 27, 2018
First place: Riley Griffin ’18, for Kim Cates took a stance in the Duke lacrosse case—what does that mean for students today?, The Chronicle, April 12, 2018
Second place: Elizabeth Anne Brown ’18, for I go to Duke. Do I have to care about basketball?, The New York Times, March 2, 2018
Fischer-Zernin Award for Local Journalism
Bill McCarthy ’19, for a series of fact-checks about North Carolina’s congressional races in the weeks leading up to 2018 Election Day:
Does this GOP candidate actually want to ‘abolish’ the Department of Education?
Republican ‘voted to gut protections for pre-existing conditions?’ There’s more to it.
George Holding misleads on Obamacare premium increase during debate
Produced by the North Carolina Fact-Checking Project, The News & Observer and PolitiFact NC, 2018
Photos by Colin Huth