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Our silly group photo on our last night together. (Photo by Gil Asakawa)

Pulitzer Prize day is a fascinating one in American journalism.
It can remind us of how vital local news is, which the South Florida Sun-Sentinel did in 2018 ([link removed]) as it covered a deadly high school shooting and continued investigating the district itself for its response. It can remind us of the present perils of the industry, which was true with the prize won by California Sunday Magazine ([link removed]) in 2021, after it closed in 2020. It can revive our confidence in the small publications out there still covering their communities, which happened in 2017 with the Storm Lake (Iowa) Times ([link removed]) .
My colleagues at Poynter did great work on Monday covering the awards and offering context and perspective about the work that won. You can find that all here ([link removed]) .
Last week in D.C., I got to be part of a different awards ceremony. I think the work we recognized was important, thoughtful and has the potential to change how we work.

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For the Poynter-Koch Media and Journalism Fellowship ([link removed]) , which I co-lead with Benét J. Wilson, we get a year with fellows through in-person summits and weekly Zooms. Part of the fellowship has always included an innovation project. And there’s nothing like the word “innovation” to make people freeze.
So we put it differently. We told our fellows to build something that makes your newsroom, your community or our industry better. Starting in January, they had one week off our normal programming to devote time to their projects.
For our closing summit, Wilson and I planned to feature about 12 of them. But when we sat down with the fellowship’s leadership team, which includes Wilson, lead advisor Omar Gallaga and Stand Together’s Jaymee Copenhaver, to look over them and pick some winners, we could not.
There were too many, and they were just too good.
We blew up our schedule and wove in presentations from any fellow who wanted to share what they built. About 50 got up to present. Wilson, our team and I voted on 1st through 3rd place, and the fellows voted on three people’s choice awards.
I have a quite lengthy tweet about ALL the projects and the fellowship, which you can find here ([link removed]) . But let me share four that I think exemplify our goal to make things better.
Kati Kokal of the Palm Beach Post and Justin Baxley of WMAZ won our top awards. Both have the potential to be so good for our industry. Both won $1,500.
“For my project, I launched a how-to guide to establishing community aid so that our efforts from last year can be replicated any time there are media layoffs,” Kokal tweeted ([link removed]) after the awards. “This is the online guide (with templates + resources for those who have been laid off).”
Here’s that guide. ([link removed])
“The project I have been working on is called More Than a Number,” Baxley tweeted ([link removed]) after the awards. “It is a more empathetic and compassionate way for journalists to interact with family members of unthinkable crimes such as homicides and mass shootings. My daddy’s murder and my own experience was the driving force behind the project. I am so proud to be able to honor my daddy in this way. Being able to take one of the worst times in my life and turn it into positive change in our industry is just so incredible for me.”
The project is still being built, but I’ll share links when it’s shareable.
Our third place awards (yes, we had a hard time choosing, both won $500,) went to Michael Butler ([link removed]) of the Miami Herald, who built a guide to help newcomers to his newsroom. It included tips on weather, language, context around politics and was so insightful. This is good for his newsroom. If more newsrooms built these, it would benefit their staff and communities.
And our other third place award went to Janelle Calderón ([link removed]) of the Nevada Independent, who automated a process to better connect the Spanish and English work of her newsroom. This is good for her community.
The Pulitzers remind me that good journalism costs money, takes time and will, it changes lives, communities and governments. Our little award ceremony and our big fellowship remind me that the work of journalists can also make small things better, and that, too, is worth celebrating.
That’s it for me. We’re in the last three weeks of the school year and honestly I’m ready for summer as much as my kids are. (Remind me of this in August. 😅)
Thanks for reading,
Kristen
Kristen Hare
Faculty
The Poynter Institute
@kristenhare ([link removed])
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