Finalists announced in 2018 Mirror Awards competition

Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications today announced the finalists in the 2018 Mirror Awards competition honoring excellence in media industry reporting. Winners will be announced at an awards ceremony June 14 in New York City. Tickets and tables for the event may be purchased online. Follow on Twitter at #Mirrors18.

The finalists, selected by a group of journalists and journalism educators, are:

BEST SINGLE ARTICLE/STORY

• RT, Sputnik & Russia’s New Theory of War by Jim Rutenberg (The New York Times Magazine)
• The Sinclair Revolution Will Be Televised. It’ll Just Have Low Production Values by Felix Gillette (Bloomberg Businessweek)
• Sheldon Adelson: Playing to Win by Nadine Epstein and Wesley G. Pippert (Moment)
• Report From Whitefish: After the Cyber Storm by Ellen Wexler (Moment)

BEST PROFILE

• Editor in Exile by Lois Parshley (Pacific Standard)
• Is Trump-Whisperer Maggie Haberman Changing The New York Times? By Joe Pompeo (Vanity Fair)
• CNN’s Jake Tapper is the Realest Man in “Fake News” by Taffy Brodesser-Akner (GQ)

BEST COMMENTARY

• What’s Going to Save Journalism? by Leslie Savan (The Nation)
• Don’t Let the Koch Brothers Buy ‘Time’ Magazine by Charles Alexander (The Nation)
• MTV News—And Other Sites—Are Frantically Pivoting to Video. It Won’t Work by Zach Schonfeld (Newsweek)
• The Media Bubble Is Worse Than You Think by Jack Shafer and Tucker Doherty (Politico)

SPECIAL TOPIC CATEGORY: BEST STORY ON FAKE NEWS

• Amanda Robb
  • Pizzagate: A Slice of Fake News (Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX with The Investigative Fund) with Laura Starecheski, Michael Schiller, Aaron Sankin, Michael Corey
  • Anatomy of a Fake News Scandal (Rolling Stone with The Investigative Fund)
• Inside the Macedonian Fake-News Complex by Samanth Subramanian (Wired)
• Don’t blame the election on fake news. Blame it on the media. by Duncan J. Watts and David M. Rothschild (Columbia Journalism Review)

SPECIAL TOPIC CATEGORY: BEST STORY ON SEXUAL MISCONDUCT IN THE MEDIA INDUSTRY

• Your Reckoning. And Mine. By Rebecca Traister (The Cut)
• Eight women say Charlie Rose sexually harassed them — with nudity, groping and lewd calls by Irin Carmon and Amy Brittain (The Washington Post)
• At Vice, Cutting-Edge Media and Allegations of Old-School Sexual Harassment by Emily Steel (The New York Times)

JOHN M. HIGGINS AWARD FOR BEST IN-DEPTH/ENTERPRISE REPORTING

• The Making of an American Nazi by Luke O’Brien (The Atlantic)
• Series of investigative pieces on Harvey Weinstein by Ronan Farrow (The New Yorker)
  • From Aggressive Overtures to Sexual Assault: Harvey Weinstein’s Accusers Tell Their Stories
  • Weighing the Costs of Speaking Out About Harvey Weinstein
  • Harvey Weinstein’s Army of Spies
  • Harvey Weinstein’s Secret Settlements
• Series of investigative pieces on Harvey Weinstein (The New York Times)
  • Sexual Misconduct Claims Trail a Hollywood Mogul by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey
  • Big-Name Actresses Say They Were Harassed by Weinstein by Jodi Kantor and Rachel Abrams
  • New Accusers Expand Claims Against Weinstein Into the 1970s by Ellen Gabler, Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor
  • Feeding the Complicity Machine by Megan Twohey, Jodi Kantor, Susan Dominus, Jim Rutenberg and Steve Eder
• Series of pieces on ad fraud by Craig Silverman (BuzzFeed News)
  • Attack of the Zombie Websites
  • Myspace Looked Like It Was Back. Actually, It Was A Pawn In An Ad Fraud Scheme
  • How To Create Web Traffic “Out Of Thin Air”
  • A Bunch Of Digital Publishers Bought Cheap Traffic And Later Found Out It Was Fraudulent

The Mirror Awards are the most important awards for recognizing excellence in media industry reporting. Established by the Newhouse School in 2006, the awards honor the reporters, editors and teams of writers who hold a mirror to their own industry for the public’s benefit.

In addition to the juried awards, the Newhouse School will present the Fred Dressler Leadership Award and the i-3 award for impact, innovation and influence at the award ceremony, which will be held Thursday, June 14, from 11:30 a.m. to 2:15 p.m. at Cipriani 42nd Street, 110 E. 42nd St., New York City. Tickets and tables may be purchased online.

For more information, email mirror@syr.edu.