The Harry Chapin Media Awards were established in 1982 to reward journalists for their coverage of hunger and poverty-related issues. An independent panel of judges will select this year's recipients in June. The finalists for 2008 are:
Newspapers:
"The Spoils," Lydia Polgreen (The New York Times); "Food's Future Revolutions," Associated Press staff writers ( Associated Press); "Heat Deaths and Immigrant Crisis in California Fields," Susan Ferriss (The Sacramento Bee); "Forced Out," Debbie Cenziper and Sarah Cohen (The Washington Post); and "A New Era," Jamie Smith Hopkins and Stephen Kiehl (The Baltimore Sun).
Television: Safe Haven, Alex Shey, Karen Foshay and Judy Muller (KCET); A Hundred Dead People in My Truck, Caroline Bleahen and Jim Fahy (RTE); The Politics of Rice, Mat Skene, Avi Lewis, Pat Anderson, Jeremy Dupin, Andrea Schmidt and Warwick Meade (Al Jazeera English); and Wild Hostile North: The Forgotten Country, Peter Moss (Kenya Television Network).
Radio: "Tough Times in Fresno: Down and Out," Philip Martin and Jason De Rose (Day to Day, NPR); "Brazil Rising: Old Challenges, New Responses," Kristin McHugh, Keith Porter and Simon Marks (The Stanley Foundation); and "A New Life on a Foreclosed Home," Anita Shontel Woodley, Dick Gordon and Greg Kelly (North Carolina Public Radio).
Periodicals: "World Food Crisis: 7 Steps to Food Sanity," Jim Rice and Elizabeth Palmberg (Sojourners); "Hunger Hits Home," Aliya Sternstein (CQ Weekly); and "The Invisible Workforce," David Dagan (Central Penn Business Journal).
Books: All You Can Eat: How Hungry is America?, Joel Berg (Seven Stories Press); The Good Pirates of the Forgotten Bayous: Fighting to Save a Way of Life in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina, Ken Wells (Yale University Press); and Night Fire: Big Oil, Poison Air, and Margie Richard's Fight to Save Her Town, Ronnie Greene (Harper Collins).
Photojournalism: "Stranded in the Middle Ground," Greg Constantine (The Himel Southasian); "Doctor's New Mission: Healing Tanzania," Carlos Avila Gonzalez (San Francisco Chronicle); "Gonzalo and Mayra: A Story of Love in Times of Misery," Sebastian Salguero (Dario La Voz Del Interior); "Hunger and Rage," Jan Sochor (Burn Magazine); and "China Pollution: Dust and Ashes," Teun Voeten (LA Weekly).
WHY and Mediabistro will present the Harry Chapin Media Awards Ceremony on Sept. 22, 2009 at the Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square, New York City.
