Conservatives Encourage Right Writing

Insight on the News, August 30, 1999 by Michele Reaves

Ten college newspapers and magazines have received $30,000 in awards from the Center for Print and Broadcast Media in the form of the first Conservative Campus Journalism Awards. A project of the Leadership Institute, the center's mission is to "train conservatives committed to unbiased and fair reporting for future careers in the communications industry."

The institute, based in Arlington, Va., named several of the awards for noted journalists, including Wesley Pruden, editor in chief of the Washington 77roes, syndicated columnist and talk-show host Robert Novak, National Review Editor in Chief Rich Lowry and L. Brent Bozell of the Media Research Center. It also named one for its president, Morton Blackwell.

Judges sifted through 236 entries from 85 students at 41 publications vying in the 16 award categories. A $1,500 prize in investigative journalism went to the Dartmouth Review for a story that "exposed campus health care's foibles and the disposition of medical personnel to medicate without cause."

James Couture, editor of Freedom magazine at Brandeis University, received a $3,000 prize for his "competence in a wide breadth of subjects." Baird Allis, a student at the University of Chicago, won a $2,000 award for "Hutchinson's Core," which made "a lucid and powerful case for Chicago's core curriculum." The Harvard Salient, under the leadership of Hugh Liebert and Roman Martinez, also won for "good clean writing and a clear presentation."

Baylor University's Libertas, Lee Strang, a first-year law student at the University of Iowa; Kyle Harper and Brad Watson, founders of the Fountainhead at the University of Oklahoma; and Steven Menashi of the Dartmouth Review also won prizes, as did Karen Martin for her editorial cartoons for the Fountainhead at the University of Oklahoma. The Design/Layout Award went to the Wabash Commentary because it "is handled with the skill and attention to detail that make for a reader-friendly and engaging publication."

The Northwestern Chronicle at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., received the Courage Award for its ideas opposing student government and administrative agendas, even after the student government voted to close the paper.