UBC Journalism students have been honoured with a regional Edward R. Murrow Award for their Out of the Shadows project on global mental health treatment.
The Murrow Awards are presented each year by the Radio Television Digital News Association and are one of the highest honours in journalism, recognizing “outstanding achievements in electronic journalism.”
The award was in the category Small Online News Organization – Video News Series, International.
Students in the School of Journalism’s International Reporting Program and faculty supervisors travelled to West Africa, Jordan and India.
The project examined how regions without strong health care systems are grappling with treating mental illness, and the community members who often step in to provide care in an absence of services.
The work of the International Reporting Program has been recognized with Murrow Awards for the past three years.
“To have students recognized by professional peers like this is a real honour,” said UBC Journalism associate professor Peter Klein, who led the IRP class. “It’s a testament to the hard work all the IRP fellows put into this project.”
Students Olivia Fellows, Emily Fister, Maura Forrest, Linda Givetash, Darryl Hol, Pauline Holdsworth, Hala Kamaliddin, Gian-Paolo Mendoza, Valentina Ruiz Leotaud and Emi Sasagawa reported and produced Out of the Shadows.
Supervision and support on the project came from Klein as well as faculty members David Rummel, Kathryn Gretsinger and Dan McKinney. Additional members of the team included Chantelle Bellrichard, Britney Dennison, Kim Frank and Dr. Videsh Kapoor, co-founder of UBC’s Global Health Initiative.
“A central philosophy of the School of Journalism is to foster knowledge-based journalism, deeply grounded in research and scholarship,” Klein said.
“The IRP fellows who worked on this project immersed themselves in the academic literature, and they had the privilege of working with Dr. Kapoor, who provided valuable guidance. That ground work prepared them to report on this complex and challenging topic.”
The Million Dollar Meds project, a project of the Graduate School of Journalism produced by several alumni was awarded a regional Murrow Award for Small Online News Organization Website.
Regional winners automatically advance to the national Edward R. Murrow Awards competition, which will be judged in May. The national awards ceremony takes place in New York City on October 10.
