Journalists from Chattanooga and Chicago Honored for International Reporting

By: Irene Moskowitz | 12/09/2011

Ignatius presents Trevizo with the David Ignatius Award for International Reporting for an in-depth series on immigration in Chattanooga.

Perla Trevizo took first prize for developing a multimedia-rich web portal called Between Two Worlds. She focused on the unsettled lives of children born in the United States to undocumented Guatemalans in Chattanooga, Tenn. Nicholas Shields, working at WTTW, the PBS affiliate in Chicago, received an honorable mention for his segment on the struggles of an undocumented 19-year-old Mexican student unable to qualify for financial aid to attend college in Chicago.

Both journalists participated in Bringing Home the World, ICFJ’s international reporting fellowship program for minority journalists. Funded by Ford Foundation, the initiative expands international coverage by giving minority journalists the chance to report from overseas, providing an enriching career experience and an opportunity to cover important issues that resonate in their communities. In all, eight fellows published in news outlets that reach nearly 100 million people.

The fellows were honored at a luncheon on Tuesday, Dec. 6 at Ford Foundation’s headquarters in New York. During a panel discussion, Trevizo, who traveled to Guatemala for her story, said, “There was no way my newspaper would have had the resources and the training to prepare me to do such a project.” Trevizo’s winning series involved seven slideshows, six videos and 13 news stories. The series generated robust web traffic of 25,000 visitors and nearly 400 reader emails. Trevizo has since spoken at universities and private schools, engaging her audience on this complex topic.

Shields’ piece aired as Illinois’ legislature was grappling with the issue of scholarships for undocumented college-bound students. Three months after the piece ran, Illinois governor Pat Quinn signed the Illinois Dream Act, giving illegal immigrants access to college scholarships and savings programs.

To read more of their stories, click here.

Latest News

A Reporter's Guide to The History of Tariffs

This piece was produced in collaboration with the Global Business Journalism program at Tsinghua University. The program is a partnership between ICFJ, Tsinghua University and Bloomberg News.

For most of human history, governments have taxed goods crossing their borders. Tariffs — taxes levied on imports or exports — have financed

Hans Staiger Award Winner Investigates Russian Soldiers Secretly Treated in Belarus Hospitals, Including Those Linked to War Crimes

Leaked data from the Russian Defense Ministry shook the story loose. A team of investigators found that during the first 21 months of the invasion of Ukraine, nearly 1,000 Russian soldiers were treated at Belarusian hospitals, including war crime suspects. These “secret patients,” as they were known, directly tied Belarus to Moscow’s war effort.

I Blew Up on TikTok with Journalism — Here's How You Can, Too

l'll never forget the day when an editor at the BBC told a 25-year-old me that journalists shouldn’t be on TikTok because “there’s so much misinformation on there.” By that point, I had maybe 10,000 followers on the platform, possibly more, and the comment stung. My TikToks, which had amplified my journalism as well as my passion for learning new languages, were well researched and I hoped the direct opposite of misinformation.