IUPUI prof. wins 2nd Press Club criticism award

IU-Purdue University Indianapolis journalism professor Sherry Ricchiardi has won the National Press Club’s Arthur Rowse Award for Press Criticism for a second time.

National Press Club award winners are considered the best at their craft. The Rowse Award recognizes excellence in the critique of media coverage.

Ricchiardi, a senior contributing writer for the American Journalism Review, is the 2009 Rowse Award winner in the category for articles published in newspapers, magazines, newsletters and online, according to an IU press release.

The professor’s award honors articles she wrote in 2008 about “the media’s lack of coverage of the war in Iraq; how well the media scrutinized the Bush administration’s allegations against Iran; coverage of the war in Afghanistan and the Chauncey Bailey Project, a joint effort by a coalition of West Coast news outlets to investigate the murder of Oakland journalist Chauncey Bailey,” stated a report on the American Journalism Review’s Web site.

“We’re very proud that Sherry has received this well-deserved honor,” said Rem Rieder, editor and publisher of American Journalism Review, in the award announcement. “She is a wonderful journalist who is truly passionate about what she does.”

Ricchiardi also won a Rowse Award in 2003 and received an honorable mention in 2006, according to a press release.

“Her body of work considered this year included American Journalism Review stories on journalistic coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said James Brown, executive associate dean and professor of the School of Journalism at IUPUI. “Her dogged pursuit of truth in important stories has earned her a national reputation for press criticism. These same characteristics make her one of the best teachers of journalism in the country.”