The 2023 Sharyl Attkisson professional journalism ION Awards are open for entry!
Read about 2022’s winners here.
Submission Requirements and FAQs for Professional Journalists
Objective: The purpose of The ION Awards program is to recognize and encourage exceptional, original and off narrative news reporting in an increasingly-managed news environment.
Fee: None
What’s the prize? The ION Award comes with a cash prize of at least $3,000 donated by Attkisson. The amount will be given to one winner or divided among multiple winners.
Who can enter? The ION Awards are open to professional local and national video, print, and online news reporters. Currently, there are not segregated categories.
How many times can I enter? 1 entry per person. Judging will be limited to the first 100 entries.
What’s the entry deadline? July 31, 2023
What time frame of reporting is eligible? Entry must have been published by a professional news organization or site from April 1, 2022 to July 1, 2023.
What is The ION Awards looking to recognize?
- The ION Awards is seeking superior, exceptional original or investigative reporting; particularly that which is off the typical news narrative.
- This award is not designed for daily news event reporting or breaking news.
- It is not intended to recognize reporting that covers a story in a way similar to a lot of other coverage.
Can I submit a series of reports as a single entry?
Yes, if it’s a single topic.
What factors will The ION Awards judges consider?
- Is the reporting accurate and fair?
- How important is the covered topic?
- Does the reporting give insight into something or reveal facts in a way that other news outlets did not?
- Are alternate or opposing information and views well-represented?
- Is information appropriately sourced and attributed?
- Are all appropriate ethical standards followed?
- Did the reporter put in critical thinking and extra work to obtain information?
- How well told is the story?
Who will serve as judges for The ION Awards?
Sharyl Attkisson and Professor Alberto Martinez of the University of Texas. Other judges may assist, as needed. If a judge personally knows an entrant, or if there is any conflict of interest, the entry will be scored by another judge.
When and how will the winner or winners be announced?
The announcement will be made August 31 2023, or as soon as possible thereafter. The announcement will be made at SharylAttkisson.com. The winner or winners will also be notified individually.
The ION Award process, from judging to prize(s), is a volunteer and charitable process on the part of organizers. No guarantees or promises shall be considered to have been made by this notice or award.
Application Process
(An application example is at the end of this notice)
Email the entry to: [email protected]
Subject line must read: “ION Awards Entry” with your name, such as: “ION Awards Entry, John Doe”
Entry must include an Internet link to the published work. The link should lead only to the section of work to be judged, as the judges will not search through a video or publication to find the operative entry.
In the body of the email (not as an attachment) please include the following:
1. Entry title
2. One line summary
3. Name and title of primary reporter(s)
4. Date, company of publication and (if applicable) program
5. A brief summary addressing why the reporting is interesting and original, investigative, or off-narrative; and the main findings.
6. Your phone number and email address, which will not be published or shared outside of the ION Awards.
Due to the expected volume of entries, we will generally not be able to answer individual questions or provide individual feedback.
Thank you, and good luck!
Application Example
1. Entry title:
Ukrainian lobbyists
2. One line summary:
Through an examination of federal records and FOI requests, we revealed how popular political and media narratives about Ukraine were directly guided by millions of dollars spend by lobbyists.
3. Name and title of primary reporter(s):
John Doe, Investigative Reporter
4 Date, company of publication and (if applicable) program:
March 3, 2022, CNN, The International Hour
5. A brief summary addressing why the reporting is interesting and original, investigative, or off-narrative, and the main findings.
While most news reports focused on Russia’s agitation of Ukraine and efforts to fund the Ukrainian resistance, we decided to dig into FARA (Foreign Agents Registration Act) data to see how much of the public narrative might be influenced by US companies and officials operating as foriegn agents for Ukraine and Russia. We learned that while Russia spent a moderate amount of money on lobbying, Ukraine’s efforts far eclipsed that, quadrupling in a short time period and focusing on high profile lobbying firms that reached out to high ranking public officials and media organizations.
Below you can read the announcement about the Student ION awards at the University of Florida
Sharyl Attkisson Establishes Investigative Journalism Award for UF Students
Award-winning journalist and CJC alumna Sharyl Attkisson, B.S. Telecommunication 1982 and Hall of Fame 1999, has donated funds to establish the Sharyl Attkisson Investigative and Original News Prize, intended to encourage fresh, innovative and open-minded approaches to independent reporting on important public policy issues at the university, city, county, state or national levels.
A first-place prize of $3,500 and an honorable mention prize of $1,500 will be awarded for reporting that uncovers facts and illuminates issues not previously known or rarely discussed at the time of publication. The work must have been produced and published in either a student, university or professional publication during the 2021-22 academic year. The contest is open to all UF students enrolled during that year.
The contest entry period will begin in March 2022.
For 30 years, Attkisson was a correspondent and anchor at CBS News, PBS, CNN and in local news. She is a five-time Emmy Award winner, and recipient of the Edward R. Murrow Award for investigative reporting. Attkisson is a NYT bestselling author and is managing editor of the national Sunday TV show, “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.”
Link to announcement can be found here.
About Sharyl Attkisson
Sharyl Attkisson is a nonpartisan investigative journalist whose work has received more than a dozen Emmy nominations. She is recipient of five Emmy Awards, including for investigative reporting; the Edward R. Murrow Award for Investigative Reporting; and numerous nominations and awards from Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE), Loeb, and others. Her recognized work includes exposes on Red Cross fraud, the vaccine-autism link and other pharmaceutical industry scandals, the Bush Administration bank bail-out, Firestone tires, the Fast and Furious “gunwalker” case, lobbying in Washington DC, waste of taxpayer money, charity fraud, and an undercover investigation into Republican fundraising.
Attkisson is author of three bestsellers: Stonewalled, Slanted and The Smear; and the college textbook Writing Right for Broadcast and Internet News. She has served on the journalism advisory councils at the University of Florida and Diablo Valley College. She has worked in local news and at the national news level at CNN, CBS and PBS (where she hosted a medical newsmagazine “HealthWeek”). She currently is host and managing editor of the nonpartisan Sunday TV News program “Full Measure.” Attkisson has written for many publications including The Hill, Real Clear Politics, Newsweek and Epoch Times. She has sponsored Freedom of Information conferences and donated extensively to good journalism causes. Her speeches and videos on journalism topics have garnered millions of views online.
Investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson recently established The ION Awards for exceptional student journalism at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications and Diablo Valley College.
Congratulations to the first student ION Award winners at the University of Florida in 2022.
To get more information on how to donate to fund additional cash incentives for off narrative journalism, please email [email protected] with “ION Awards Donation” in the subject line.
Sharyl,
Lest you forget, Journalists/Journalism
died during Marxian Abe Lincoln’s war
against the Founders’/Framers’ idea of
a SELF-determination-type government
—read terrorist Sherman’s opinion :
– snip –
2 ) — Study T R U E Reason for Sherman’s March : —
“ In a January 31, 1864 letter to Major R.M. Sawyer,
Sherman explained the reason why he hated the
South in general, and South Carolina in particular,
so much. The war, he said ‘was the result of a
FALSE political doctrine that any and every people
have a right to self-government.’ In the same letter
Sherman referred to states’ rights, freedom of
conscience, and freedom of the press as ‘TRASH’
that had ‘deluded the Southern people into war.’ “
[ above CAPS, my emphasis ]
And, yet, brain-dead conservatives still praise Evil
Tyrant Abe Lincoln’s CONTRIVED war against
Self-Determination.
Above quotation is from here :
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/12/thomas-dilorenzo/us-soldiers-raped-pillaged-and-plundered/
– snip –
And lest everyone forget John Swinton’s
rebuke of those who write as if JOURNALISM
is a real thing, today :
Forwarded Message :
— “Jumping Jack Journalists” —
A derogatory term I’ve borrowed
from John Swinton’s truth-telling
criticism of journalists—of his own
newspaper and profession :
“There is no such thing, at this date in the world’s
history, in America, as an independent press . . . If
I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one
issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my
occupation would be gone. The business of the
journalists is to destroy the truth; to lie outright;
to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of mammon,
and to sell his country and his race for his daily
bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is
this toasting an independent press? We are the
tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes.
We are the jumping jacks; they pull the strings and
we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our
lives are all the property of other men. We are
intellectual prostitutes.” -John Swinton ( 1888 )
[[ Swinton was former Chief-of-Staff
of the New York Times, speaking before
the New York Press Club—to toast an
“independent” press. ]]
-Rick
P.S.
– Damn Your Lying Eyes, Whitey ? ! –
This scribbler/analyses/psychology
student awaits your Full Measure
Team’s report on this ongoing
G R E A T D I S P L A C E M E N T
of White Americans with People
of CLOLOR !—such as the 2020 Ad
Council’s beginning flipping of all
TV commercials’ race-representation
of Whitey FROM about 80% to minority
representation, in 2023, of about 20%
among TV actors; and White men are
seen mostly paired with a person-of-
color female; and as if Marxism’s
underlying tenet of universal/global
RACIAL Mongrelization – via willy-nilly,
cross-border, interracial hookups –
is a damn-your-lying-eyes MYTH
( study Aristotle’ warnings ).
Is that report scheduled, Full Measure
Team ?
UNFORTUNATELY, SEVERAL, ( not all ) of what SWINTON S WROTE IS STILL MUCH STOO TRUE TODAY! THANK YOU SHARYL FOR THE OPPOSITE OF ALL THAT HE SPEWED OUT. ” WISH I WAS A PROFESSIONAL JOURNALIST!”. WISH RICK DANCER HAD WON AGAINST KATE BROWN, HE WOULD HAVE BEEN TEN TIMES BATTER! AS GOV., my 20 yr FRIEND WOULD HAVE FINISHED MY EFFORTS ON
REP. PAM MARSH’S HOUSE BILL 2 5 1 8 MANY YRS AGO! RICK DANCER WAS FAMOUS IN EUGENE -SPRINGFIELD AREA FOR 20 PLUS YRS. NOW HE HAD VENTURED INTO MONTANA. ! HE WAS OUR GO-TO NEWS GUY 4 OVER FOUR URS. OUR ” RUSSELL CREEK NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION ‘ CHALLENGE CITY HALL, COUNTY, STATE, & FED. GOV’T AND VICTORY PARTY WAS OH SO SWEET ! YES, “YOU CAN FIGHT CITY HALL!”. ’98 – ’02. SWEET SWEET VICTORY! WE GAVE ” NIMBY” HUGE PARAMETERS. DARN FOOLS WANTED TO “PAVE- OVER OUT WETLANDS ! ( song lyrics?). RICK WAS & IS STILL RCNA’s HERO! OPRAH REFUSED TO DO JUSTICE TO OUR EVENT, SORELY DISAPPOINTED me. THAT’S WHY I BELIEVE IN MIRACLES!
LIKE YOU, RICK EXPOSED EVERY LITTLE BIT OF TWISTED EFFORTS BY DOD & UNCLE SAM’S BIG $$$ ,& POWER !!!
VICTORY PARTY ALL DAY LONG ACCROSS THE ST FROM OUR HOME. OUR YRS OF ” ENJOYING EETLAND BITDS, SQUIRRELS,DEER,REF FOXES, ,& OTHER VISITORS TO OUR SOUTH PASTEUR CONTINUED! IT WAS A RICH INSPIRED FOUR PLUS YRS OF UNITED CLOSE NIT NEIGHBOR FRIENDS! I SHOULD ENTER THIS TO “READERS DIGEST! AFTER OPRAH, who probably never had chance to personally read or PERUSE it , depressed & other events PREVENTED any further attempts. B
BUT NOW , 20 YEARS LATER I’M WORKING ON ANOTHER MIRACLE!
ANOTHER “MINI – MIRACLE I PROMOTED AT SORRC, WHITE CITY VA FACILITY was rewarding. I networked every VETERAN THEREIN ,& MY FAVORITE NURSE, RONNIE, RHONDA ZIMMERMAN WAS CHOSEN TO RECIEVE” DAISY AWARD”! SEEING 20 YRS SELFLESS GIVING REWARDED, SHE WAS SMILING eat to eat. ✓✓✓ it out September,2020 ! Made her LAST yrs complete! SADLY, I heard SHE NOW HAS CANCER! Y PRESENT MIRACLE HAPPENING NOW & TOMORROW NIS IS MAKING HB 2 5 1 8 BECOME LAW , SAVING CHILDREN’S LIVES IN OREGON AND MAKING ALL FREEWAY DRIVERS SAFER, esp. TOURIST! YOU HAVE OPPORTUNITY TO HELP, BE A MOST IMPORTANT VIP CONTRIBUTOR! YES, AGAIN I’M HUMBLY BEGGING FOR THE CHILDREN! 67 YRS OF UNTENABLE HYPOCRITIC OATH-LYING NEGLIGENCE BY SALEM’S LOT OF 92 MUST BE STOPPED,! THEIR “COMPLICITY” IN KILLING MURDERING INNOCENT XWAY CHILDREN MUST BE STOPPED! 67 YRS OF CATERING PANDERING TO THE DELUSIONAL SELFISH SUICIDAL PEDS, & BICYCLIST IS CRIMINAL,! MAYBE WHISTLE BLOWERS NATIONAL CENTER CAN HELP REP. PAM MARSH. MAYBE THEY WILL BE WITH YOU IN WAKING UP THE IMPOSTERS IN SALEM’S LOT TO REALITY! PYRRHIC SELF CENTERED SELFISH SUICIDAL PEDS &! BICYCLIST NEED TO COMMIT SUICIDE SOLO, NOT RUINING YOUR LIFE! ECONOMICALLY IT IS MUCH MORE COST EFFECTIVE TO BUILD BIKE PATHS ADJACENT TO FREEWAYS ON SAME RIGHT-OF-WAYS THAN ANOTHER SINGLE MILE OF FREEWAY without SAFER – HEALTHIER BIKE PATHS. DISTANCE THE BIKE PATHS AWAY FROM HIGH SPEED KILLERS! WHAT PART OF THIS “COMMON SENSE APPROACH” IS Greek to SALEM’S LOT! PLEASE, I BEG YOU &;YOURS TO BE A PART OF THIS SOLUTION, NEVER THE PROBLEM IN OPPOSITION! BUILD YOUR LEGACY WITH CROWING EFFORT, SAVE THE FUTURES OF OREGON, INNOCENT CHILDREN MOSTLY OF MARGINALIZED GUARDIANS PARENTS HAVE NEEN KILLED OR SERIOUSLY INJURED-FOR-LIFE DURING LAST 67 YRS! I PERSONALLY KNOW DETAILS OF TWO DEATHS, 13, & 7, KILLED MURDERED WITH SALEM LOT’S ” ACQUIESCENCE & INSOUCIANCE” BLESDINGS OF ” COMPLICITY!!! Oct 8,;2004 THRU April 1, 2005 ! Extrapolate for twice each of 67 YRS! GUESSTIMATE # OF CHILDREN’;DEATHS & GOD ONLY KNOWS HOW MANY CHILDREN SERIOUSLY INJURED- FOR-LIFE ! PLEASE CONTINUE
EXERCISING YOUR BIG HEART, YOUR ENDLESS SOUL, & YOUR VIBRANT CONSCIENCE MAKING AMERICA BETTER ! THANKS FOR ALL FORTHCOMING PEERLESS HELP! ken,
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected], @kenbussell99, @kenlbussell49,.
4 5 8 – 6 5 8 – 1 8 5 5
Ken Bussell,
Re : use of CAPS
Why not rewrite that post
without the caps, because,
as you may see, trying to read
that run-on paragraph causes
EYE-STRAIN (( discouraging
the reader from trudging thru
your thoughts )) ?
Buried in there are meaningful
opinions.
Caps work when software
allows for double-spacing
between words (( always
double-space between
capitalized words, as such
a format is easier to read )).
Sharyl’s software collapses
double-spacing between
words.
-Rick
I am making $162/hour telecommuting. I never imagined that it was honest to goodness yet my closest companion is earning $21,000 a month by working on the web, that ne-87 was truly shocking for me, she prescribed me to attempt it simply,Detail Are Here————>>> https://aprichs.blogspot.com
Miss Attkisson is a honest journalist
Sharyl’s readers are always the most interesting people in the room as evidenced by their comments. Someone should really investigate what those 5G towers are doing to our brains.
Distractions aside I want to commend Sharyl’s initiative in creating and funding the ION Awards to reward good independent journalism. The Fourth Estate needs to encourage more voices to seek and speak the truth to power and to shine a light where darkness is trying to prevail. True reporting is a noble endeavor..
I wonder if there is a way Sharyl or someone else on the ION Awards committee could crowd source funds to provide even higher award amounts for the recipients. I’m sure I’m not alone in wanting to contribute.
Give your phone an elite look with the Bape
Kaws Doll iPhone Case.
real
“We cannot help you with this story” … “uhh but it affected one of your own people and has been going on since before 1997?” … “We cannot help you with this story” – “tech reporter” with Lexington Hearld Leader(Liberal) when a woman’s personal private phone in their Circulation Department locked up our studio phone line about 2011 and she being in media marketing ‘got it’ for the significance of hot mic room audio being distributed out UNENCRYPTED since years prior to the patriot act or the sessionizer’s software deveoped by NSA of Narus and Verint were gifted to Israelis #talpiot programs. SEE MY hasty “Declaration of Michael Williamson” in 23-5337 before the 6th Circuit Ct of Appeals in Cincinnati OH and well S.o.S . ASAP been attempting to get legal help and reporting on this since 2008 or before being long labeled ‘Conspiracy theorist” even with PROOF and Proof of DAMAGE which is why E.F.F. ACLU William Binney and others are told they don’t have a case. WE DO, Businesses and Individuals from the “targeted town of Kim Davis” as I call it.
very hard to ‘get the word out’ when you get labeled as SPAM and yet there’s spam junk in your comments that gets through hmmm. Ohhh well. I’ve tried for 25 years to sound the warnings and get destroyed by FCC surprise suprise Sgt Carter. Makes one wonder if too many are correct about ameriKa being just another brand of tyranny wiht a facade of Liberty managed, leaks and handlers for all appoved journalists.
Any updates on this year’s winners? It’s almost been two months since the winner’s were supposed to be announced