The Trace received top awards from two media organizations for its first-ever student journalism reporting project.
On September 30, The Trace received the 2019 Global Youth & News Media award for “Since Parkland,” a 10-month reporting collaboration profiling 1,200 kids and teens who were shot and killed in the United States during the 12 months after the February 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.”Since Parkland” was a collaboration with the Miami Herald, McClatchy, and more than 200 student journalists.
“We saw a powerful combination of youth empowerment, capacity-building and innovative storytelling, all in one project,” the prize judges wrote. “The teen journalists should feel incredibly proud for their part in this.”
The award will be presented on November 20th at the 2019 NewsXchange conference in Paris.
“Since Parkland” also won the Pro-Am Student Journalism prize at the Online Journalism Awards on September 14. The award “honors an excellent student project that uses digital storytelling and technologies to inform its audience.”
“With ‘Since Parkland’ we wanted to drive home the point that gun violence is much bigger than mass shootings,” said Akoto Ofori-Atta, the project director and The Trace’s managing editor. “It was an incredibly important project for our newsroom, and we’re honored to have it recognized by our peers in media.”
Meanwhile, Fast Company named the project a finalist in the Social Good category of the magazine’s 2019 Innovation By Design list.
About the Trace
The Trace is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit journalism organization, and the only media outlet dedicated to full-time and in-depth reporting on America’s gun violence crisis. Since our launch in June 2015, we have partnered with more than 110 national and local media organizations, including BuzzFeed, USA Today, McClatchy, The New Yorker, Politico Magazine, ProPublica, WNYC, Tampa Bay Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Slate, Chicago Sun-Times, Foreign Policy, and Teen Vogue. Our stories increase the public’s knowledge and understanding of the issue and spur action by policymakers, researchers, and law enforcement.
The Trace is always eager to hear from journalists interested in partnering with our nonprofit newsroom. Got an idea for a project? Please drop a note to Managing Editor Akoto Ofori-Atta at [email protected].
