Three current Nieman Fellows have won journalism awards this fall for work done online and on air. Homicide Watch D.C., co-founded by Nieman Fellow Laura Amico and her husband Chris, took home the Knight Award for Public Service at the Online News Association’s annual conference in San Francisco. The couple received a standing ovation when the award was announced, a hard-earned reward after running the website out of their home for two years and struggling for funding. Accepting the award, Laura said “We mark every death, we remember every victim and we follow every case.” Chris noted, “For everyone who is on their own, building a business from the ground up, this one’s for you.”
Alexandra Garcia, another fellow who works as a multimedia journalist with The Washington Post, was part of the team that won an Edward R. Murrow Award for the video project Under Suspicion: Voices about Muslims in America. Started last year on the eve of the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11, the special report features over 100 interviews and examines what it means to be a Muslim in America today. Alexandra produced, shot, edited and reported the video together with her colleague Ben de la Cruz. Other team members were database designer Grace Koerber editor Lynda Robinson.
Nieman Fellow and reporter Souad Mekhennet and her colleague Elmar Theveßen won Germany’s prestigious Deutsche Fernsehpreis in Germany for their two-part ZDF documentary “9/11: The Day the World Changed.” Also produced ten years after the terrorist attacks in the U.S., the program analyzes the profound global impact of the day on politics and society and features interviews with people ranging from national leaders to Taliban representatives to soldiers and others affected by 9/11 and its aftermath.
