Sarah Stillman, the inaugural recipient of The Reporting Award, given by New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, has captured two journalism honors for a story she did under the award’s funding: the Hillman Prize for Magazine Journalism and the National Magazine Award in the category of “Public Interest”.

NYU Carter Journalism Institute’s “Reporting Award” Winner Captures Two Prizes for Story on Human Trafficking
Sarah Stillman, the inaugural recipient of The Reporting Award, given by New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, has captured two journalism honors for a story she did under the award’s funding: the Hillman Prize for Magazine Journalism and the National Magazine Award in the category of “Public Interest”.

Sarah Stillman, the inaugural recipient of The Reporting Award, given by New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, has captured two journalism honors for a story she did under the award’s funding: the Hillman Prize for Magazine Journalism and the National Magazine Award in the category of “Public Interest”.

Stillman’s piece, “The Invisible Army,” which documents poor treatment of Third-World nationals working on U.S. military bases in Afghanistan and Iraq, appeared in the June 6, 2011 issue of the New Yorker.

The Reporting Award, now in its second year, funds articles on under-reported subjects in the public interest.

“Sarah’s compelling story is a perfect representation of the work we’re trying to encourage at a time of cutbacks in editorial budgets,” said Stephen Solomon, associate director of the Institute.

The Reporting Award supports a work of journalism in any medium on significant underreported subjects in the public interest. In establishing the award, the Carter Journalism Institute’s faculty cited the need for encouraging enterprise journalism during a time of extensive layoffs and budget cuts throughout the journalism industry. The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism recently estimated that the newspaper industry has lost $1.6 billion in annual reporting and editing capacity since 2000—a reduction of roughly 30 percent.

The award includes a stipend of $2,500 upon selection as the competition winner and an additional $10,000 upon timely completion and submission of the work, provided the Institute’s awards committee judges the work acceptable. The winner also has use of the Institute’s facilities, including an office, as well as NYU’s libraries and other scholarly resources. In addition, the program funds up to $6,000 in NYU journalism graduate student assistance. The Institute will publish the completed work either alone or in partnership with another media outlet.

The Hillman Prizes, given by the Sidney Hillman Foundation, recognize journalists who pursue investigative reporting and deep storytelling in service of the common good. The National Magazine Awards, sponsored by the American Society of Magazine Editors, honor magazines that demonstrate superior execution of editorial objectives, innovative techniques, noteworthy journalistic enterprise, and imaginative art direction.

For more on The Reporting Award, click here.

Earlier this year, Stillman received two other awards for her New Yorker story: the Overseas Press Club’s Joe and Laurie Dine Award for International Human Rights Reporting and the Michael Kelly Award. The Michael Kelly Award, sponsored by the Atlantic Media Company, honors a writer or editor whose work exemplifies the career of Michael Kelly, who died in April 2003, while on assignment in Iraq, the first American reporter killed during the conflict.

Stillman had previously traveled to Iraq as a foreign correspondent for TruthDig, where she embedded with the 116th Military Police Company. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Nation, the New Republic, the Dallas Morning News, and other outlets.

For more on the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, click here.

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