Communication Studies' Jennifer Karchmer wins SPJ award

At a ceremony on May 18 held in Seattle, Jennifer Karchmer, a senior instructor in Western's Department of Communication Studies, received a First Place Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) award for the article “Take a Look at Iceland: Internet Freedom During Election Season” that ran in the Oct-Nov 2012 edition of Whatcom Watch.

The article won in the Arts Reporting and Criticism News for Non-Daily Newspapers category as part of the 2012 NW Excellence in Journalism Contest. For this annual contest, entries come from freelance, independent and mainstream media reporters based in Region 10, which includes Alaska, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana.

The winning article covers a six-week research project she conducted in Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland, from January to February 2012. She interviewed more than a dozen Icelandic journalists while researching Iceland’s approach to freedom of the press, information and expression.

Another article she wrote on the same topic, this time published in “The Reykjavik Grapevine,” received the First Place in International Reporting award from the Washington Press Association 2012 Communications Contest. The Grapevine is an English-language arts, entertainment and political news magazine based in Iceland, online and in print. The WPA is a nonprofit organization for journalists, media professionals and students.