Innovator Award
Deadline: March 1, 2012
The Alumni Board created the Innovator Award, to be given to an alumnus/a of Columbia Journalism School for inspiring, creating, developing or implementing new ideas that further the cause of journalism. The inaugural recipient of this award is Kelly Golnoush Niknejad M.S. ’05, M.A. ’06, founder and editor-in-chief of Tehran Bureau, which she launched in 2008. Within months, the news outlet she had just created became a must-read for many who closely followed the disputed re-election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The Daily Beast named her one of "17 people who are changing the world" through their editing, blogging, reporting, videos and Twitter feeds. Tehran Bureau is now in partnership with PBS/FRONTLINE. Their first editorial partnership on a documentary, "A Death in Tehran," won an Emmy for continuing coverage of a news story.
The Innovator Award highlights the school's growing emphasis on innovative methods of digital delivery, reporting and presentation.
The Innovator Award will be presented at the 2012 Hearst New Media Lecture on Thursday, April 19, 2012 during Alumni Weekend.