The Ninth Annual Izzy Awards, named for I.F. Izzy Stone the legendary independent journalist who exposed government deceit and assault on civil rights, were presented at Ithaca College last night. The public ceremony was preceded by a panel discussion with the award recipients hosted by Park Center founder and lifelong media critic, Professor Jeff Cohen.
From L to R: Richard Rowley, Lucian Read, Rebecca Teitel, and Solly Granatstein, of America Divided, Shane Bauer, Seth Freed Wessler, Ari Berman and Jeff Cohen
As Cohen questioned the group about how they do such effective journalism while having such a strong point of view, Rick Rowley spoke to his desire to "break the ideology of objectivity." While main stream media divides people and obfuscates truth from above "we own the war on the ground...people have commonalities...film and video at its best is a connection making machine." By presenting real stories of people whose lives are harmed by the system they show how policies destroy families, justice and democracy. Ari Berman spoke to his passion for, "finding and telling what's true." Berman told the truth about how the first Presidential Election since the abolition of the voting rights act was fraught with illegal activities by states, which though overturned by the Federal courts, skewed the election. Seth Freed Wessler, whose work of sifting through the government's records on the deplorable healthcare in federal for profit Immigrant detention centers emulates I.F. Stone's diligence and tenacity. He explained that presenting the truth that is hidden is itself a provocative action alerting "the other actors" to play their various roles. In the face of bad governance the most revolutionary act a journalist can take is to tell the truth.
The documentary series America Divided, which is an integrated set of studies into: "inequality in education, housing, health, labor, mass incarceration and criminal justice, immigration, and the influence of money on our political system," illustrates how these issues are interrelated. In his acceptance of his award for America Divided, Lucian Read demonstrated how interrelated the work of the various recipients is by pointing out that the stories in America Divided could not have been told without the foundation provided by independent journalists like Ari Berman, Shane Bauer and Seth Freed Wessler.
My own personal award for ballsiest journalistic undertaking would have to go to Bauer for his four months of undercover work as a corrections officer for Corrections Corporation of America, which has since been rebranded as CoreCivic. Anyone who would put himself in that environment in order to, as Cohen said "give voice to the voiceless," deserves a medal.
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