Last night I had the opportunity to attend the first ever Robin Toner prize and lecture for excellence in political reporting. I found out about this lecture from a professor I had last semester, Charlotte Grimes, who helped to organize the event. Professor Grimes is the Knight Chair in political reporting and teaches an AWESOME class (COM 200, I highly recommend taking it) that is both informative and a lot of fun. Anyways, Professor Grimes emailed all of her former students about the event, and I was very glad she did.
Robin Toner recently passed away, so last night was dedicated to her amazing work. Toner was the first woman to become a national political reporter for the New York Times, and a graduate from Newhouse. The first half of the event focused on awarding the Robin Toner Prize, $5000 for great work in political reporting. Craig Harris, of The Arizona Republic, won the award for his recent work on Arizona’s public pension plan. His eight part series inspired Arizona lawmakers to change the pension system and correct the abuse.
In the second half of the program, Marilyn Serafini, a journalist focusing on health care reform, gave a lecture on the performance of the media in the health care debate. It was very interesting to hear Serafini critique herself and her colleagues, and explain to us why there is still such confusion when it comes to the public’s perception of the health care bill. She explained how the bill is 2000 pages, and that many of the congressmen voting on the bill have not had the chance to read it all, and probably never will. She also explained how complicated the bill is, because there were multiple parties involved in writing it, including pharmaceutical companies. I gained a much better outlook on the health care bill because of her lecture, and am very glad I attended.
The Robin Toner Program hopes to continue a prize and lecture annually, and I highly suggest everyone attends in the future. Toner is a great role model, both as a Newhouse graduate and as a woman and mother.
