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The Sydney H. Schanberg Prize for Long-Form Journalism
Tilles Center, School of Performing Arts Create SensoryFriendly Immersive Performance
Luke Mogelson
Sydney H. Schanberg The George Polk Awards and Long Island University announced the creation of the Sydney H. Schanberg Prize and selected its first recipient, Luke Mogelson of The New Yorker. The prize is to be awarded annually for exceptional and passionate long-form investigative or enterprise journalism embodying qualities reflected in the late Schanberg’s legendary career. Mogelson is recognized for “Among the Insurrectionists,” his 12,000-word account of events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 including video footage he took that day. He followed violent protestors as they advanced on the Capitol, using his phone’s camera as a reporter’s notebook. For much of the day, he was the only reporter in the chamber producing videos that were viewed by millions, presented as evidence during President Trump’s second impeachment trial and, along with his highly evocative written account, remain a definitive source of what transpired inside the Capitol and motivated the insurrectionists.
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Sydney Schanberg was a two-time George Polk Award winner among many other honors during his 25 years as a foreign correspondent, bureau chief, editor and columnist at the New York Times. The story for which Schanberg is most remembered came when Cambodia fell to the Khmer Rouge in 1975. Schanberg was the Southeast Asia correspondent for the Times, and he refused to leave Cambodia against his editors’ orders. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his Cambodia coverage, and his work became the basis for the 1984 movie “The Killing Fields.” Winners of the Schanberg Prize receive a $25,000 honorarium funded by Schanberg’s widow, the journalist Jane Freiman Schanberg, who stipulated that the Schanberg Prize honor “highly distinguished, deep coverage of armed conflicts; local, state or federal government corruption; military injustice; war crimes, genocide or sedition; or authoritarian government abuses” of at least 5,000 words “that results from staying with a story, sometimes at great risk or sacrifice.”
Theatre students, faculty and alumni in partnership with Tilles Center for the Performing Arts created Branching Out, a sensory-immersive performance designed for individuals on the autism spectrum and those with limited movement or complex communication needs. The multi-sensory experience, which debuted to school audiences and the public, is about a journey through the four seasons and celebrating change.
George Polk School Receives Rare Historic Documents on Journalist’s Life A unique collection of papers and books related to the life of famed CBS Correspondent George Polk will be housed at the George Polk School of Communication at LIU. Donated by Polk’s niece, Milbry Polk, the collection was curated by her father William Polk and is the basis for his last book about his brother George.
