The North Star News Prize awardees. (left to right) Farai Chideya, Maria Hinojosa, Errol Louis
Juan Gonzalez, Amy Goodman, Errol Louis, Arva Rice, Hugh Hogan, Maria Hinojosa, Farai Chideya and event co-chair Barbara Winslow.
German Perez, Maria Hinojosa, Hugh Hogan, event co-chairs Anne H. Hess and Toby D'Oench, Juanita Scarlett, Errol Louis
Event co-chair Toby D'Oench and Errol Louis
Farai dancing with a friend. |
"I'm thrilled to see this room filled with people committed to social justice," said Board chairperson Arva Rice, welcoming the crowd of 200 to North Star Fund’s inaugural North Star News Prize event. “Tonight, for the first time, we celebrate Frederick Douglass’s legacy by honoring the journalists and media makers who carry on his great contributions to these fields.” With a gorgeous view of Manhattan as the backdrop, North Star Fund supporters enjoyed an evening of live jazz, cocktails, and as many attendees remarked, inspiration. Though he could not be present in person, honorary Event Chair David Strathairn, Academy-Award nominated star of last year’s Good Night, and Good Luck, congratulated Prize winners Maria Hinojosa, Errol Louis and Farai Chideya, and reminded the crowd via a video greeting “to do everything you can to support the work of North Star Fund.” Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez were on hand to present the evening’s awards to Hinojosa, Louis and Chideya. "We need a media with a people's agenda,” said Goodman, emphasizing that the corporate media alone will not ensure all voices are heard. “And that's what Maria, Errol and Farai represent." "I'm being honored by people who are making change," said Chideya upon accepting her award. "It's a tough thing in this society to stand up for what is right instead of what is expedient." Chideya is a multimedia journalist, author and founder of PopandPolitics.com, which trains aspiring reporters. She is also a host and correspondent for NPR’s News and Notes with Ed Gordon. Introducing his New York Daily News colleague, columnist Errol Louis, Juan Gonzalez remarked that he found a kindred spirit in Louis when he joined the News in 2004. "It's a hard place to work," said Gonzalez, referring to the paper’s increasingly conservative slant. “New York is a much better place in terms of public discourse because of him.” Louis said his mother turned him on to journalism, enrolling him in a training program that led to a reporting job at Brooklyn’s now-defunct City Sun, a black weekly. Soon he was writing three columns a week. Louis would go on to found a federal credit union in Brooklyn with a grant from North Star Fund. "It was the best $5,000 we ever got," he said. "It took us nine months to spend it…We later brought millions into the neighborhood." The final award went to Maria Hinojosa, senior correspondent at PBS’ NOW and managing editor and host of NPR’s Latino USA. “She illuminates the stories of unsung heroes,” Goodman said of Hinojosa. Growing up as a Mexican on Chicago's South Side, Hinojosa felt "invisible". Accompanying her mother to a rally with Martin Luther King Jr. one day “was life changing. My mother had this great understanding of justice." Along with a broad array of social justice supporters, Hinojosa has interviewed her share of racist skinheads and xenophobic anti-immigrant vigilantes, and presents them fairly. "There's this notion of being a journalist that, because you believe in justice, you have an agenda," Hinojosa said. "I don't believe that. We all have to listen.” Hinojosa told of reporting on an undocumented immigrant who died in the World Trade Center. Afterwards, people from all over the country offered gifts and money to his widow and children in the South Bronx. "We all crossed boundaries," she said. Executive Director Hugh Hogan said North Star Fund's work cannot be done without the progressive media voice embodied by the three North Star News Prize honorees. “Reporting and activism can co-exist," he said, echoing Hinojosa. “Truth is not a bias.” |