ITHACA, NY – Celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Izzy Award, the Park Center for Independent Media (PCIM) at Ithaca College has announced that this year’s award is being shared by four journalists who published path-breaking and in-depth reporting in 2017 that exposed political corruption, environmental hazards and militarism: investigative reporter Lee Fang of The Intercept; Investigative Fund reporting fellow and Intercept journalist Sharon Lerner; Truthout staff reporter Dahr Jamail; and author Todd Miller.
The Izzy Award, presented for outstanding achievement in independent media, is named in memory of I.F. “Izzy” Stone, the dissident journalist who launched I.F. Stone’s Weekly in 1953 and challenged McCarthyism, racism, war, and government deceit. The award ceremony is scheduled for April 24, details to be announced.
The Izzy Award judges commented: ‘Each of this year’s Izzy winners has broken new ground in exposing corporate profiteering and the power of money over public policy. Their breakthrough coverage is made possible by non-corporate outlets such as The Intercept, Truthout, and TomDispatch.com, resources such as The Nation Institute’s Investigative Fund, and publishers like City Lights Books’…
- SHARON LERNER, an Investigative Fund reporting fellow, carved out a beat at The Intercept covering science, health, and the environment. She has reported on reversals at the EPA and the suppression of scientists, and offered exhaustive probing of the human cost of Dow Chemical’s decades-long effort to save the toxic pesticide, chlorpyrifos—obtaining internal EPA documents to show the agency’s pro-industry bias. Another in-depth feature exposed how Exxon Mobil had pumped toxins into a largely black community in Texas for years thanks to EPA inaction in the face of a civil rights complaint. Yet another focused on a Louisiana town plagued by air pollution from a DuPont plant.
‘In a year of retrenchment at the EPA, Sharon Lerner has been on the journalistic barricades,’ said the Izzy judges. ‘With poignant attention paid to the people affected, her meticulous scientific reporting on environmental toxins and environmental racism has sparked action by state attorneys general and members of Congress.’
The veteran environmental journalist’s “Teflon Toxin” series was a 2016 finalist for a National Magazine Award.”
Read the full article by Jeff Cohen.