The Sports Journalism Institute, which has enhanced racial and gender diversity in sports departments nationwide since 1993, will receive the prestigious Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service.
The Sports Journalism Institute directors Sandy Rosenbush and Leon Carter will accept the medal on behalf of SJI during a banquet Monday, Oct. 26 on the University of Missouri. Rosenbush, a former APSE president, is an ESPN event news editor. Carter, a long-time APSE member and leader, is an ESPN vice president and editorial director of TheUndefeated.com.
One other media organization and seven journalists will receive the medal, awarded for lifetime or superior achievement in journalism.
The Missouri School of Journalism has awarded the Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism annually since 1930. Among those previously honored are Tom Brokaw, Christiane Amanpour, Sir Winston Churchill and Gloria Steinem.
The Sports Journalism Institute is a nine-week training and internship program for college students interested in sports journalism careers. The Institute attracts talented students to journalism through opportunities in sports reporting and editing.
The Sports Journalism Institute works with the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA), National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) and Association for Women in Sports Media. Funders include APSE, MLB.com, and Disney, and partners include ESPN, USA TODAY and the Missouri School of Journalism.
The program has almost 300 graduates, the majority of whom have gone on to work at newspapers, websites and TV stations and networks around the country.
SJI participants recently concluded the first phase of their 2015 program at the University of Missouri following a week of training from Rosenbush and Carter. Those who led that training include SJI board members Greg Lee, editorial director of NBA.com, and David Squires, assistant managing editor of the Sporting News, and Greg Bowers, sports editor of The (Columbia) Missourian.
SJI has placed the 12 members of its class of 2015 at the Kansas City Star, South Florida Sun Sentinel, ESPN, MLB.com, the Los Angeles News Group, Sports Illustrated, the Salt Lake Tribune, the Houston Chronicle, the Pittsburgh Tribune Review and the Denver Post.
Others to be honored with the Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism in October are:
— CNN Digital.
— Author and activist Barbara Ehrenreich.
— The New York Review of Books publisher Rea Hederman
— Photojournalist and documentary photographer Gerd Ludwig.
— Copy editor Merrill Perlman
— CBS News Senior White House correspondent Bill Plante
— Cuban blogger, journalists and entrepreneur Yoani Sanchez
— Lincoln Stephens, co-founder of The Marcus Graham Project.
