2006 HEYWOOD BROUN AWARD

Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. The IRE Journal, Nov/Dec 2006

The Newspaper Guild-CWA announces its 2006 HEYWOOD BROUN AWARD

This annual competition is intended to encourage and recognize individual journalistic achievement by members of the working media, particularly if it helps right a wrong or correct an injustice. First consideration will be given to entries on behalf of individuals or teams of no more than two. This, too, is in the spirit of Broun.

Heywood Broun was a crusading columnist for The Tribune and The World in New York from 1912 until his death in 1939. He also wrote frequently for The Nation and The New Republic, as well as Harper's, Bookman, American Mercury and Collier's. He founded the American Newspaper Guild in 1933 and served as its first president.

Although his first love was sports, Broun is best remembered for his reporting on social issues and his passionate championing of the underdog and the disadvantaged. "When a man has a conviction, great or small, about eggs or eternity, he must wear it always in plain sight, pulled down tight upon his forehead," he once wrote. "I see no wisdom in saving up punches for a rainy day."

Broun maintained a steadfast belief that journalists could help right wrongs, especially social ills. "I am a little sick and tired of being classed as soft, bourgeois and sentimental if I say that human brotherhood could solve overnight the problems concerning which men shake their heads and say 'It's too bad but insurmountable'," he wrote in 1933. And in 1939, just a month before his death, he wrote: "I would like to see some columnists do the side streets and the suburbs and chronicle the joys and tragedies of the ordinary run of people."

* DEADLINE: Entries must be postmarked no later than Jan. 26, 2007, and must have a clearly legible return address on the package. Entries posted after Jan. 26 will be discarded. Faxed and e-mailed entries will not be accepted.

* AWARD: $5,000, plus two awards of $1,000 for entries of substantial distinction. One of the awards of substantial distinction will be for a broadcast (television or radio) entry. Entries published exclusively on the Internet will be judged as print submissions.

* PUBLICATION DATES: The award will be given for work published or broadcast between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2006.

* ELIGIBILITY: Journalists working on behalf of nonstudent mass media in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico are eligible, whether Guild members or not; student journalists should seek the Barr Award. Publishers and other employers, or entries on behalf of an entire staff of a publication or employer, are not eligible; neither are entries written or reported by managers. Entries may be submitted by applicants for themselves or by others; however, entrants should note that the judges frown on obviously mass-produced contest entries.

* All entries become property of the award committee.

* REQUIREMENTS: There is no official entry form, nor is there an entry fee. Each newspaper or magazine entry must be submitted in triplicate, one copy of which must be an original tearsheet. Internet entries should be submitted as print-outs, also in triplicate. Broadcast entries shall consist of one copy of a tape (VHS), CD or DVD and three copies of a final script and a summary.

All entries must include:

1. A one-page summary.

2. A separate description of the circumstances under which the work was done and its results.

3. Contact name, phone and e-mail address.

Entries that do not conform to these requirements will not be judged.

* ADDRESS:

Broun Award Committee The Newspaper Guild-CWA 501 Third Street, N.W. Washington. DC 20001-2797

* PHONE: 202-434-7177

* A list of past winners and judges may be seen online at the Guild's website, www.newsguild.org.

* Entries will be acknowledged via postcard. Winners will be notified personally and will be announced in the March, 2007 issue of The Guild Reporter, which also may be read online.

* Awards will be presented at a dinner banquet May 3, 2007 in Washington, D.C.