Izzy Award 2017

The ninth annual Izzy Award was presented April 12, 2017 to Mother Jones senior reporter SHANE BAUER (“My Four Months as a Private Prison Guard“) and SETH FREED WESSLER, a reporting fellow with The Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute, who, working separately, exposed abuse and death inside U.S. for-profit prisons; and ARI BERMAN of The Nation Institute, who illuminated the problem of systematic voter suppression in dozens of reports for The Nation and TheNation.com. A special documentary honor was given to “AMERICA DIVIDED,” a docu-series that powerfully illuminates structural inequality in the U.S. Accepting the award on behalf of “America Divided” were creators/executive producers Solly Granatstein, Lucian Read and Richard Rowley, and senior producer Rebecca Teitel. The honorees spoke passionately at the award ceremony to an appreciative crowd in Ithaca College’s Emerson Suites.