Bingham Fellowship (Archive)

This page is a portal to historical information archived from the Association of Opinion Journalists (formerly National Conference of Editorial Writers, 1947-2011) which merged into ASNE in 2016-2017.

Information about the 2017 Barry Bingham Sr. Fellowship winner can be found on our blog.

The National Conference of Editorial Writers, later Association of Opinion Journalists, beginning in 1990 annually presented the Barry Bingham Sr. Fellowship to honor and assist an educator whose continuing work greatly benefits young minority journalists.

Information on previous winners follows below.

Investigations professor Armstong wins Bingham

(St. Petersburg, Fla., June 28, 2016) David G. Armstrong, a Georgia State University professor who trains student journalists in investigative reporting as director of the Georgia News Lab, is the recipient of the 2016 Barry Bingham Sr. Fellowship, the Association of Opinion Journalists Foundation announced today.

The $1,000 award, given in recognition of an educator’s outstanding efforts to encourage students of color in the field of journalism, will be officially presented at the American Society of News Editors (ASNE) annual convention in Philadelphia on Sept. 13. A merger of AOJ and ASNE, approved by the AOJ board on May 15, is expected to be completed later this year.

The Bingham fellowship brings to the ASNE convention an outstanding faculty member who has shown great initiative in mentoring college students. “We’re proud to honor David for his work with the News Lab. He is exactly the sort of person the Barry Bingham Fellowship was meant to recognize,” said David D. Haynes, president of AOJ and editorial page editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Armstrong was nominated by Ken Foskett, senior editor for investigations at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

He wrote, “With support from Cox, our parent company, the News Lab was started two years ago at Georgia State to train young journalists in investigative reporting and improve diversity within the ranks of investigative reporting, which tends to be dominated by white males. The program draws students from Atlanta’s historically black universities (Clark Atlanta, Spelman and Morehouse), as well as Georgia’s large public universities – UGA, Kennesaw State and GSU.

“Students of color comprise more than half the class, and this is entirely due to the relationships David Armstrong has built and the recruiting he does each year. I’ve also seen firsthand the time and energy David puts into the training and career development of his students.

“Those efforts have paid off, both in terms of recognition for the program and job offers/internships for students. The Online News Association has awarded the News Lab $100,000 in challenge grant funding, and this year the program won a $50,000 grant from the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation. The program has won smaller grants from the Gannett Foundation and the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

“Last year, five News Lab students won an SPJ award for investigative reporting in the student category and all four graduating seniors from the program’s first year landed jobs with news outlets (CNN, WAFF-TV, Norfolk Daily Press, and the Washington Post’s Talent Network). This summer, four students earned summer internships at the AJC and WSB-TV in Atlanta, while one of the two graduate students landed a full-time job with Atlanta’s alternative weekly.”

About the Association of Opinion Journalists

The Association of Opinion Journalists, with nearly 200 members nationwide, was founded in 1947 as The National Conference of Editorial Writers and renamed AOJ in 2012. AOJ is dedicated to advancing the craft of opinion journalism through education, professional development, exploration of issues of public importance and vigorous advocacy within journalism organizations. It is based at The Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida.

About the American Society of News Editors

The American Society of News Editors focuses on leadership development and journalism-related issues. Founded in 1922 as a nonprofit professional organization, ASNE promotes fair, principled journalism; defends and protects First Amendment rights; and fights for freedom of information and open government. Leadership, innovation, diversity and inclusion in coverage and the journalism workforce, youth journalism, news literacy and the sharing of ideas are also key ASNE initiatives.

Julian Rodriguez wins 2015 AOJ Bingham Fellowship

Award honors Spanish-language efforts at University of Texas at Arlington

The Association of Opinion Journalists chose Julian Rodriguez of the University of Texas at Arlington as the 2015 recipient of the Barry Bingham Sr. Fellowship.

The award recognizes an educator’s outstanding efforts to encourage and mentor college students of color in the field of journalism.

“We are thrilled to make this award to such a deserving recipient,” said David D. Haynes, editorial page editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and AOJ president. “Julian Rodriguez is doing the good work every day of molding journalists in their native language. We’re proud to be able to recognize his work.”

Rebecca Aguilar, vice president for online of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, said in her nominating letter:

“Today dozens of Spanish speaking college students are graduating with journalism degrees and are prepared to take jobs in Spanish-language media because of Julian Rodriguez. This professor at University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) realized there was a need to teach broadcast news in Spanish and he made it happen.

"Rodriguez is the only fully bilingual Hispanic faculty member in the Department of Communication at UTA. He’s the founder and news director of UTA News en Español (UTANE), a Spanish-language television newscast produced in the television studios of the Department of Communication at UTA. Rodriguez and his students have been producing original newscasts since 2010.”

Rodriguez's selection recognizes the importance of training journalists for the Spanish-language media, the preference of the majority of what is now the nation’s largest minority group.

The latest diversity survey from the American Society of News Editors shows that Hispanics were 4.46 percent of journalists in mainstream newsrooms, though in 2010, the U.S. Census Bureau found Hispanics to be 16 percent of the total population.

For many, the Spanish-language media is a pipeline to the mainstream media.

Rodriguez is doing important work that AOJ's Diversity Committee and board of trustees felt strongly deserved to be recognized.

Since 2000, the recipient of the Bingham award has been given a $1,000 honorarium to be used to “further work in progress or begin a new project.”

The award is named for Barry Bingham Sr., a journalist and crusader who used his position as publisher of the Courier-Journal and Louisville Times newspapers in Kentucky to attract minority students into newspaper careers.

Past recipients include William Drummond, University of California at Berkeley; Vanessa Shelton, University of Iowa; Michelle Johnson, Boston University; Yvonne Latty, New York University; and Sree Sreenivasan of Columbia University.

AOJ is the nation’s oldest organization for opinion journalists. The award will be presented on Nov. 14 at AOJ’s Annual Symposium at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Past winners of the NCEW-AOJ Barry Bingham Sr. Fellowship for outstanding service to journalism education and diversity:

James Hawkins, Florida A&M University (1990)
Larry Kaggwa, Howard University (1992)
Ben Holman, University of Maryland (1996)
Linda Jones, Roosevelt University, Chicago (1998)
Ramon Chavez, University of Colorado, Boulder (1999)
Erna Smith, San Francisco State (2000)
Joseph Selden, Penn State (2001)
Cheryl Smith, Paul Quinn College (2002)
Rose Richard, Marquette University (2003)
Leara D. Rhodes, University of Georgia (2004)
Denny McAuliffe, University of Montana (2005)
Pearl Stewart, Black College Wire (2006)
Valerie White, Florida A&M University (2007)
Phillip Dixon, Howard University (2008)
Bruce DePyssler, North Carolina Central University (2009)
Sree Sreenivasan, Columbia University (2010)
Yvonne Latty, New York University (2011)
Michelle Johnson, Boston University (2012)
Vanessa Shelton, University of Iowa (2013)
William Drummond, University of California, Berkeley (2014)