August 2010: Contest Winners Share Their Secrets

Message from EWA's Director

More than 125 people have taken our survey on the online professional community EWA intends to create. Are you among them? If not, we want your feedback. Take a few moment to tell us what EWA should consider when developing our new resource.

Thanks for your time!

Caroline Hendrie

<ON THE BLACKBOARD>

EWA Launches Ed Beat Blog

EWA is pleased to introduce Ed Beat, a new staff-written blog that will take note of developments on the education beat and suggest angles for reporters covering them. Got ideas for coverage? E-mail us at edbeat@ewa.org. http://www.edbeat.net/

Source Search

EWA is pleased to offer a new searchable database of more than 1,000 sources on children and education, with full contact information, links to their websites and information about their areas of expertise.

The Public Editor

Call Linda Perlstein for help with your stories. And don't forget to read The Educated Reporter for tips on how to do your job better.

http://www.ewa.org/site/PageServer?pagename=resources_publiceditor

http://www.educatedreporter.com/

Press Release Center

Post your press release or read about upcoming events or major reports on EWA's website.

Looking for Work?

Check out EWA's Job Center for the latest vacancies in education journalism and communications. Visit our jobs page today!

Follow EWA on

Facebook

Twitter

MySpace

Subscribe to EWA's RSS Feeds

How They Did the Story

Get a first-hand look at how 18 winners from the 2009 National Awards for Education Reporting got stories. Read how grand prize winner Bob Hohler of the Boston Globe and other nominees for EWA's grand prize got the job done.

Sports Neglected in Boston Public Schools

"Failing Our Athletes: The Sad State of Sports in Boston Public Schools"

Reported by Bob Hohler, Boston Globe

As an investigative sportswriter for the Boston Globe, I have been interested in examining the role of sports in society, in this case public school education. The idea for this series sprang up in part from my own experience in the Boston Public Schools many years earlier. At that time, the system was plagued by gross inequities and deficiencies, which were brilliantly chronicled by Jonathan Kozol in his book, `Death at an Early Age.' I knew city leaders had improved the schools in many ways since then, but I also suspected that there were lingering problems.

Hohler won first prize in the large-media category for a series or group of articles.

Read more of Hohler's narrative for "Failing Our Athletes: The Sad State of Sports in Boston Public Schools."

Patience Pays Off for Two Washington Post Reporters

"Poor Neighborhoods, Untested Teachers"

Reported by Daniel deVise and Michael Alison Chandler, Washington Post

The only real hurdle in reporting the story -- and it was a major hurdle -- was time. It took months to get the records from the school districts showing the distribution of teachers by experience level and by school, more months to analyze those records, and more months to identify and visit schools that we picked based on the data to tell the story. And still more months to arrange the reporting around the ebb and flow of an academic year. You can't start a reporting assignment in a school in spring, if it's something big like this.

De Vise and Chandler won first prize in large-media category for feature, news feature or issue package.

Read more of De Vise's and Chandler's narrative for "Poor Neighborhoods, Untested Teachers."

Federal Oversight Lax in School Lunch Programs

"Trouble on the Tray?"

Reported by Peter Eisler, Blake Morrison, Anthony DeBarros and Elizabeth Weise, of USA Today

Our investigation began with two basic questions: Where does the food served in cafeterias come from, and how safe is it? What realized quickly that school administrators, even those who are entrusted to buy the food, could not say for certain. So we sought to determine what we could about the food that the federal government supplies to some 31 million schoolchildren each day through the National School Lunch Program. We created a variety of data sets that included state-by-state counts of the number of schools that had cafeteria inspections; complaints against companies that provided school food; and outbreaks of food-borne illnesses at schools.

Eisler, Morrison, DeBarros and Weise won first prize in large-media category for investigative reporting.

Read more of the USA Today's education team's narrative for "Trouble on the Tray."

Journalism Resources

Apply for Free Fellowship at Columbia

Twenty-five journalists could be selected to participate in the New York Times Institute Fellowship on Education Reporting at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism Sept. 29 to Oct. 2. Applications are due Sept. 3.

Attention, Book Authors

The National Writers Union has developed a primer on contract amendments related to the electronic rights to writers' work. The organization also offers a primer on negotiating contracts over the phone.

Please send new items and member news to Mesha Williams at publications@ewa.org.