April 30, 2025

Award-winning ethical journalism, Can Journalists Be Political?, What’s Missing from DEI Rollback Coverage, Resource Library, Student Journalism & Trump’s Visa Crackdown


Dean Baquet. Photo credit: Jordan Brown.

“We have a lot of awards in journalism, but this one feels like the start of something special. It forced us to focus not only on the quality of the work, but the decisions reporters and editors made to ensure fairness.”

So kicked off the keynote address by Dean Baquet, former executive editor of The New York Times, at the inaugural ceremony for the Peter F. Collier Awards for Ethics in Journalism. The event, hosted by us earlier this month at the Paley Center for Media in Manhattan, convened 100 journalists, news consumers, and news leaders from across the country to celebrate journalism that met the highest ethical standards in the face of pressure or incentives to do otherwise.

Gina Chua, executive editor of Semafor, with The Washington Post’s (left to right) Jenn Abelson, Jessica Contrera, and Lynda Robinson.

Dean Baquet with local first prize winner, Adam Ganucheau, editor-in-chief of Mississippi Today. Photo credit: Jordan Brown.

The Washington Post, Mississippi Today, and University of Florida undergraduate Garrett Shanley took home the top prizes in the national/international, local, and student categories. The New Yorker, The Baltimore Banner, Documented, Columbia Journalism School graduate Ariane Luthi, Johns Hopkins undergraduate Cathy Wang, and a consortium including NBC News, the Guardian, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, and Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism were among those also recognized. 

“We saw rigorous reporting that broke news and held powerful people to account, while also demonstrating consummate care for accuracy, fairness, empathy, and transparency,” Stephen J. Adler, founding director of the Ethics and Journalism Initiative, said of the awardees. “The strength of the work confirmed our belief that a greater focus on ethics can help journalists become more effective and more trustworthy. This is particularly important in this era of disinformation and distrust.”

Student first prize winner Garrett Shanley accepts his award from Collier Awards judge and Director of Wallace House Center for Journalists at the University of Michigan, Lynette Clemetson. Photo credit: Jordan Brown.

Andrew Lehren (center) with collaborators Michael Hudson (left) and Pramod Acharya (right). Lehren, Hudson, and Acharya received third prize in the national/international category for their reporting on Amazon Workers in Saudi Arabia. Photo credit: Jordan Brown.

Documented reporter Rong Xiaoqing. Photo credit: Marin Scotten.

Collier Awards highlights:

  • A rousing keynote address from Baquet, also a Collier Awards judge, that spoke to the financial and editorial challenges facing all journalists and the value of an explicit focus on ethics in reporting. “The finalists for this prize have told rich and deep stories. If we do that work, and talk about it, slowly but surely, we will win back our trust. It may take years, but the doing of the work, the meeting people in their own worlds, is ethical journalism,” said Baquet in his address. 
  • A standout team of presenters that drew from across the journalism industry, including Gina Chua, executive editor of Semafor; Lynette Clemetson, Director of Wallace House Center for Journalists at the University of Michigan; and Ellen Horne, Director of the Podcasting and Audio Reportage program at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University. 
  • Our one-day Collier Awards symposium on Friday April 11, in which awardees across categories discussed timely topics including transparency around ethical decision-making, fairness in accountability reporting, and minimizing harm when working with vulnerable sources. 

The Baltimore Banner reporters Julie Scharper (left) and Jessica Calefati (right). Photo credit: Marin Scotten.

Head to our website to see the full awardees list and read, watch, and listen to the winners’  extraordinary work.

🗓️ And mark your calendars! Submissions for the 2025-2026 Collier Awards cycle open in September.


Watch winners across the student, local, and national/international categories accept their awards live at the inaugural Collier Awards ceremony. Take in their moving remarks and listen to Dean Baquet’s keynote address.

Moderated by Sewell Chan and featuring awardees from The Washington Post, The New Yorker, and NBC News.

Moderated by Ethics & Journalism Initiative director Stephen J. Adler and featuring Mississippi Today’s Adam Ganucheau and student journalists Garrett Shanley (University of Florida) and Cathy Wang (Johns Hopkins University).

Moderated by Ethics & Journalism Initiative managing editor Ryan Howzell and featuring journalists from The Baltimore Banner, Documented, and Columbia Journalism School.


At THE CITY, journalists can participate in civic life – but only if the activity doesn’t conflict with their beats

On April 7, the Monday after thousands of New Yorkers gathered on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue to protest President Donald Trump’s policies, THE CITY’s editor-in-chief, Richard Kim, sent his staff an email reminding them of the nonprofit’s ethics policies for political protests.

Kim wasn’t worried that CITY journalists had violated its policies, which encourage them to participate in community life but also warn against political engagement in areas they cover. Instead, he told me, he was being proactive, in case THE CITY’s reporters and editors had any questions about attending partisan rallies.

“You should NOT participate in them as a demonstrator,” Kim wrote in the April 7 email. “I expect these protests to grow, and any number of reporters and editors may be called on to cover them in the future. Participating in any one of them will obviously impair our ability to do so.”

The Trump protest, Kim pointed out in the email, featured posters criticizing New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ relationship with the president, as well as signs celebrating New York’s congestion pricing policy, which Trump has sought to end. “Our reporting on these subjects,” Kim told staffers, “could be discredited if newsroom folks participate in such actions.”

***

THE CITY’s rules on civic engagement, Kim said, were tailored to its dual missions of championing New Yorkers’ involvement with their communities while covering the city with rigor, impartiality and independence.

So, Kim explained, reporters and editors for THE CITY can serve on local committees, speak up at community board meetings, and participate in non-partisan demonstrations like New York City’s annual Pride March – but only if those activities pose no conflict with their specific editorial responsibilities. THE CITY’s education reporters and editors, for example, can’t serve on their local education panels. A housing reporter can’t protest against a development project in her neighborhood. And journalists who want to march in non-partisan rallies have to assess whether the events have become more political than celebratory.

THE CITY’s policy advises journalists to consult top editors when there’s a “gray zone,” but Kim said his reporters and editors haven’t had much trouble avoiding conflicts of interest that would undermine the newsroom’s credibility as an impartial source of information.

Then check out THE CITY’s full ethics code at ethicsandjournalism.org/resources.

As an inaugural member of the ABC News race and culture team that launched in 2020, I was responsible for ensuring the network’s content reflected the diverse voices and perspectives of all Americans across various issues.

Our mission was to explain how everyday problems – from analyzing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on communities of color to tracking the affordability crisis stemming from inflation – were impacting diverse communities.

With the nation keenly focused on healing long-entrenched racial wounds, other media outlets launched similar teams to give diverse voices a chance to shine. Teams like mine at ABC covered the transformative change that DEI initiatives ushered in, boosting representation at elite colleges and in the C-suites of Fortune 500 companies for people from underrepresented backgrounds.

But fast-forward to today. DEI initiatives have been subjected to a new wave of unrelenting scrutiny from critics, blamed for everything from inflation to a tragic American Airlines plane crash in the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. On the first day of his new administration, President Donald Trump issued executive orders demanding that federal agencies and private businesses that contract with the federal government end diversity programs. DEI rollback announcements by major U.S. companies, including some not directly subject to the executive orders, followed at a breakneck pace.

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters as he signs executive orders in the White House, Feb. 4, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

“It’s that malleability,” said Columbia Journalism School Dean Jelani Cobb referring to DEI in a February New Yorker podcast episode. “[The] one source that you can use to blame every single failing or shortcoming or difficulty in life on.”

That seismic shift in attitude has affected journalism as well. Some media organizations have either completely shuttered diversity coverage teams and offices or have stripped down staffing to bite-sized levels. And, in my view, this waning commitment within newsrooms to tell stories geared toward diverse audiences is one of the primary reasons why coverage of DEI rollbacks has too often failed to provide the necessary context.

Click below to read Matthew’s full analysis of what DEI rollback stories are missing – and how a complete picture can help newsrooms win.


Since launching our new website last September, we’ve added a few features to our homepage to improve visitors’ experience. Check our new Newsletter tab, where you’ll find an archive of all of our past newsletters. Never miss an article or recommendation and share easily with friends and colleagues.

We’ve also added a featured resource of the week. Did you know that ethicsandjournalism.org hosts the largest online library of newsroom ethics codes and AI guidelines? Wondering how Documented approaches service journalism for immigrant communities or how NPR is navigating AI? Dive in at https://ethicsandjournalism.org/resources/ and check out our homepage to see which resources are guiding our team’s thinking every week.

Hot Topic: The Trump administration’s crackdown on student visas, in some cases, for political speech, is straining long-held conventions of student journalism. Across the country, editors at student publications are fielding unprecedented requests to take down and remove identifying details from previously published articles. How should student journalists navigate the sometimes-conflicting goals of minimizing harm, interrogating bias, and preserving their obligation to their audiences and the historical record?

Read takes from The Wall Street Journal and Columbia Journalism Review on the situation unfolding across university publications.

+The Student Press Law Center’s new guidance

+our February event on ethical and legal considerations for student journalists featuring Stephen Solomon, founding editor of First Amendment Watch; Columbia Journalism School professor Sheila Coronel; and Yezen Saadah, editor-in-chief of Washington Square News.

In other news: Takeaways from Poynter’s April 2025 Summit on AI, Ethics and Journalism.

Nieman Lab’s deep dive into the emerging “multi-local” newsroom model, threading the needle between big-newsroom resources and local newsroom trust. For more context, read EJI Director Stephen J. Adler’s 2024 election postmortem emphasizing the role of local newsroom partnerships in combatting “newsroom myopia.”

We Want to Hear From You

Have thoughts on something you’ve read here today or a journalism ethics topic in the news? We’d like to hear what you have to say and may feature your comments in a coming newsletter. You can drop us an email at ryan.howzell@nyu.edu or reach us on Linkedin, X, and Instagram. Plus, be one of the first to follow our new Bluesky account!