Mirror Awards Luncheon at the Plaza

On Thursday June 10th, Syracuse Univsersity’s  S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications hosted a beautiful luncheon at The Plaza Hotel in New York City to honor excellence in media industry reporting.

Established in 2006, the Mirror Awards recognizes those “who hold a mirror to their own industry for the public’s benefit,” so journalism writing about journalism in essence. Entries are judged on three criteria: excellence of craft (refer to Strunk & White on this), framing of the issue (what does this mean to greater society), and appropriateness for the intended audience (can the reader understand the content).

For those who aren’t super media savvy, it’s like the Academy Awards of Journalism.

Mistress of Ceremonies Katie Couric and co-chairs Arianna Huffington (co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post) and David Zaslav (President and CEO of Discovery Communications), drew an industry crowd of distinguished reporters, editors, and writers. Katie Couric’s presentation was as exciting and intense as an segment on CBS Evening News. Embracing social media, she said “For the sake of time, acceptance speeches will to be kept to 140 characters or less.”

Awards were presented in seven categories. And the winners were…

• Best Single Article, Traditional Media:
  Steven Johnson, “How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live” (TIME)
• Best Single Article, Digital Media:
  Megan Garber, “Common Knowledge” (Columbia Journalism Review)
• Best Profile, Traditional Media:
  Evan Osnos, “The Forbidden Zone”(The New Yorker)
• Best Profile, Digital Media:
  Nancy Jo Sales, “The Unreal Rise of Jon and Kate Gosselin” (Vanity Fair)
• Best Commentary, Traditional Media:
  Michael Wolff (Vanity Fair)
• Best Commentary, Digital Media:
  Matt Pressman (Vanity Fair)
• Best In-depth Piece, Traditional Media:
  Dean Starkman, “Power Problem” (Columbia Journalism Review)

In addition to the seven category awards, the Fred Dressler Achievement Award was also presented to Matthew Winkler on behalf of Bloomberg and the i-3 award for impact to Biz Stone on behalf of Twitter.