Pandemic, Systemic Racism and Election Integrity Stories win Cronkite Awards
After a year that witnessed the denial of science, a racial reckoning and an assault on American democracy, the eleventh biennial 2021 Walter Cronkite Awards for Excellence in Television Political Journalism celebrated journalism that sought truth, examined inequities and demonstrated the indispensability of a free and trustworthy press.
 
Noting Cronkite’s 2003 warning that democracy is in peril, Lear Center Director Marty Kaplan -- who emceed the virtual event -- said that “today we honor journalists who don’t flinch from that danger. We applaud stations and networks who give them the resources they need. And we hope more journalists and future journalists will be inspired by their example."
 
CNN, CBS and PBS coverage took national prizes, with local wins for stations in Milwaukee, Missoula and Phoenix. CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta won the Brooks Jackson Prize for Fact Checking, presented in tandem with the Cronkite Awards by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at UPenn.
Happy 99th, Norman Lear!
Norman Lear entered his hundredth year in July. It’s been a gift to us to ride along on part of his amazing journey.

"I’m rare as affordable health care (oh god)
Or going to wealth from welfare"
How is poverty portrayed in TV, film, music and video games? The Lear Center’s Media Impact Project conducted an ambitious cultural audit of poverty narratives in mass media. The report answered questions like, To what extent does pop culture perpetuate stigmatizing narratives about poverty? How common are counternarratives that challenge those stereotypes?
 
The findings are on our website, together with a playlist of poverty depictions in pop music, and our webinar where showrunners tell about writing poverty storylines for TV.

Sentinel Awards honor "Culture of Health"
NBC’s medical drama New Amsterdam has received the “Imagining a Culture of Health Award” for the show’s entire body of work during its third season, as part of Hollywood, Health & Society's 2021 Sentinel Awards. A recurring theme of New Amsterdam is the unequal access to affordable health care, with the storytelling centering on the dedicated staff at a New York City-based hospital.

Eleven other shows are being celebrated, including The Good Doctor, Euphoria, Pose, The Handmaid’s Tale, This Is Us and Grey’s Anatomy, with storylines covering Covid-19, abortion, mental health, addiction and racism. The virtual awards will be presented on Oct. 20, 2021.

#RwandaVision
What does Western media get wrong about Africa? Samantha Bee’s answer, in a #RwandaVision segment on her show Full Frontal, relied on the Lear Center’s Africa in the Media study – a deep dive into depictions of the continent and its nations in American entertainment and social media.

In the News
Upcoming Event
Thursday, September 30.
The virtual event features Leslie M.M. Blume, author of Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World; and investigative journalist Eric Schlosser, author of Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety