USA TODAY Network news outlets win AEJMC First Amendment award – azcentral.com and The Arizona Republic

A team of journalists focused on covering First Amendment issues has won a prestigious national award for their reporting.
The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the highest journalistic standards and defending freedom of communication, gave that organization’s “First Amendment Award” to reporters from USA TODAY and the USA TODAY Network, including a reporter from The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com.
“The First Amendment Award … recognizes individuals and organizations that, through personal courage, have worked to protect or advance First Amendment freedoms,” the organization said in an announcement about the winners.
The award was given for the work by a team of five reporters from across the country, including The Republic, The Indianapolis Star, the USA TODAY Network Florida, The Tennessean in Nashville and USA TODAY.
In Phoenix, Taylor Seely has covered First Amendment issues ranging from government retaliation against protesters to lawmakers seeking to criminalize librarians for providing certain books to children. Her coverage of a decision by the Fountain Hills Town Council to retaliate against a local newspaper for its reporting on city issues was cited by the award judges.
Other reporters on the team who also cover the First Amendment include Cate Charron in Indianapolis, BrieAnna Frank in Virginia, Angele Latham in Nashville and Stephany Mata in Tallahassee. The award recognized their reporting on issues ranging from the suppression of public records to federal funding cuts for NPR and PBS to attempts to block reporting on an initiative led by a governor’s wife.
The First Amendment reporting positions are made possible by support from the Freedom Forum’s Local Press Initiative and Journalism Funding Partners, a nonprofit that works to increase the depth, diversity and sustainability of local journalism. The funders are not part of editorial decisions about coverage.
The First Amendment protects freedom of religious exercise, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and freedom to petition the government to set right what you consider its wrongs.
Past winners of the organization’s award include Seymour Hersh, Molly Ivins, Helen Thomas and the team of journalists from the New York Times and New Yorker who broke the story about former Hollywood director Harvey Weinstein that helped create the #MeToo movement.

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