The Women’s Institute for Freedom of the PressWomen and Media Award
WIFP’s “Women and Media Award” is granted annually to women who have made outstanding contributions seeking media democracy and toward expanding women’s voices. It has been annual since 2013. Recipients receive the Award, $100 and deep appreciation for their crucial contributions to women and media. The Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press was founded in 1972 by Donna Allen, Ph.D. ww.wifp.org
Recipients
- 2013 – Maurine Beasley
- 2014 – Tobe Levin
- 2015 – Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
- 2016 – Soraya Chemaly
- 2017 – Vinie Burrows
- 2018 – Angela Peabody
- 2019 – Luci Murphy
- 2020 – Esther Iverem, Eleanor Goldfield, Medea Benjamin, Margaret Flowers, Alina Duarte, and Anya Parampil
- 2021 – Margaret Kimberley, Laura Flanders, Jennifer Pozner, Barbara Ransby, Nayoung Kim Park, and Carolyn LaDelle Bennett
- 2022 – Shireen Abu Akleh (posthumous), Birgitte Jallov, Sabrina Salvati, Frieda Werden, Abby Martin, Ariel Dougherty, Katie Halper, Rania Khalek, Kim Iversen, and Jennifer Barckley
- 2023 – Briahna Joy Gray, Mnar Adley, Catherine Murphy, Fiorella Isabel, Kimberlie Kranich, Jo-Anne McArthur, and Alexis Baden-Mayer
- 2024 – Ann Wright, Mariam Barghouti, Maha Nazih Al-Hussaini, Hind Osama Al-Khoudary, Lara J. Bitar, and Ghadi Francis
2024 Women and Media Awards
WIFP honors six media women:
Ann Wright is a writer and a courageous activist for peace and justice. Her writings
have appeared in Common Dreams, LA Progressive, San Francisco Bay View, The
Union, ScheerPost, World BEYOND War, and CODEPINK, Women for Peace. She is
the co-author with Susan Dixon of Dissent: Voices of Conscience: Profiles of
Whistleblowers and Others Who Have Dared to Speak the Truth About the War in
Iraq.
Photo credit: Francois Achan
Ann Wright is a retired U.S. State Department official and retired U.S. Army Colonel who
spoke out against the Iraq War. She served in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia,
Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia and Mongolia. She received the
State Department Award for Heroism in 1997. In March 2003 she resigned from the
State Department the day before the onset of the Invasion of Iraq in protest of the war.
She has since dedicated herself to peace and justice issues, writing knowledgeably for
many varied sources to inform the public about vital issues. She works closely with
many women’s organizations including Code Pink: Women for Peace and Women
Cross DMZ.Ph
Mariam Barghouti is a Palestinian-American writer, blogger, researcher, commentator,
and journalist. She lives in Ramallah. Her political commentary and research work has
been notably featured in CNN, Al Jazeera English, The Guardian, BBC, Huffington Post,
New York Times, Middle East Monitor, Newsweek, Mondoweiss, International Business
Times and TRT World.
Maha Nazih Al-Hussaini is an award-winning journalist and human rights activist
based in Gaza. Maha started her journalism career by covering Israel’s military
campaign in the Gaza Strip in July 2014. In 2020 she won the Martin Adler Prize for her
work as a freelance journalist. She is the director of strategies at the
Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor in Geneva, Switzerland. The International
Women’s Media Foundation rescinded their 2024 Courage in Journalism Award to
Maha Hussaini under pressure. This will not happen with the WIFP Award.
Hind Osama Al-Khoudary is a Palestinian journalist based in the Gaza Strip. She has
reported for multiple media outlets including Al Jazeera English, Middle East Eye, +972
Magazine, RT, The Intercept, and Anadolu Agency.
Lara J. Bitar is an independent media worker based in Beirut, Lebanon, and the
founding editor of journalist-run publication, The Public Source. She contributes reports
on social movements and civic unrest to grassroots media projects in the U.S. and
Lebanon and writes for regional and feminist publications.
Ghadi Francis is a Lebanese journalist and war correspondent. She is a field
correspondent, program producer and writer. She reports on Palestine, Gaza, Lebanon,
Syria, Israel and more with thousands of articles on the region and Arab countries. In
2011 she published a book in which she collected her testimony about the Syrian war
entitled My Pen and My Pain – One Hundred Days in Syria.
2023 Women and Media Awards
Briahna Joy Gray is an American political commentator, lawyer, and political consultant who served as the National Press Secretary for the Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign. Formerly a columnist and Senior Politics Editor at the Intercept, she was also contributing editor to Current Affairs Magazine. Joy Gray has written for the Guardian, New York Magazine, and Rollings Stone. She currently co-hosts The Hill’s Rising. Her popular podcast is called Bad Faith.
Mnar Adley is founder, CEO, and editor in chief of MintPress News, an independent watchdog journalism organization that provides issue-based original reporting, in-depth investigations, and thoughtful analysis of the most pressing topics facing our nation. Adley is also a regular speaker on responsible journalism, sexism, and neo-conservativism within the media and journalism start-ups.
Catherine Murphy is a DC-based filmmaker who has spent much of her life living and working in Latin America. She is founder and director of The Literacy Project, a multi-media documentary project on literacy in the Americas. Her films explore the intersection of education and justice movements in the Americas.
Fiorella Isabel is a journalist and geo-political analyst. She is the co-host of the Convo Couch which airs on independent media platforms like Rokfin, Rumble, and YouTube. Fiorella Isabel reports for RT (Russia Today) and currently lives in Moscow.
Kimberlie Kranich is Director of Community Content and Engagement at WILL AM-FM-TV (25 years). She is senior manager and a member of the Leadership Team. Her expertise is in managing a diverse pool of public media talent across multiple platforms with multiple community partners. Kranich has been an Associate of WIFP since she first joined as an intern in 1988.
Jo-Anne McArthur is a photographer and the founder of We Animals media. She is the cofounder of The Unbound Project which celebrates women animal advocates worldwide. Documenting our complex relationship with animals in almost sixty countries for over fifteen years, McArthur is the author of three books, We Animals, Captive, and Hidden.
Alexis Baden-Mayer, Esq. is Political Director of the Organic Consumers Association. The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) is a network of more than 1 million activists committed to creating a healthy, just, democratic, and regenerative food system. Baden-Mayer is a key organizer of some of OCA’s most popular campaigns, including the “Monsanto Makes Us Sick” campaign to ban Roundup.
2022 Women and Media Awards
Recipients of the 2022 Women and Media Award were announced on the occasion of WIFP’s 50th Anniversary, October 23, 2022:
Shireen Abu Akleh (posthumous), Birgitte Jallov, Sabrina Salvati, Frieda Werden, Abby Martin, Ariel Dougherty, Katie Halper, Rania Khalek, Kim Iversen, and Jennifer Barckley.
Birgitte Jallov
Photo credit: Alethea Russell at Alethea Makita Medea
Birgitte Jallov is the founding Director of EMPOWERHOUSE, an initiative to advance communities access to strong, sustainable community media, which Birgitte has worked to advance since the early 80s where she was a part of the budding community radio movement in her home country of Denmark. Since then Birgitte has worked systematically with documenting how community media can advance women’s voices, rights and empowered lives in more than 70 countries worldwide, based on which she is presently preparing a podcast series about “Women on the Global Community Airwaves.” Birgitte is the author of EMPOWERMENT RADIO – Voices building the community on how to build sustainable community radio.
Sabrina Salvati
WIFP’s 50th Anniversary & Awards Celebration
Photo credit: Alethea Russell at Alethea Makita Medea
Sabrina Salvati is the host of Sabby Sabs podcast and the co-host of Revolutionary Blackout Network. She is also an activist and a former educator. As a military child, she spent most of her childhood growing up overseas Sarina’s platform focuses on censorship, healthcare, education, criminal justice and the failures of the two party system in the United States. Sabrina holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of South Carolina and a Master of Education degree from Northeastern University.
Frieda Werden
Photo credit: Alethea Russell at Alethea Makita Medea
Frieda Werden is the co-founder and series producer of the long-running radio series WINGS: Women’s International News Gathering Service. The series is produced in collaboration with women radio producers from around the world, and distributed to community radio stations in multiple countries. Prior to co-founding WINGS, Frieda had a background in radio production with Longhorn Radio Network and National Public Radio. She also worked in print media and as Associate Curator of the Texas Women’s History Project. In 2002 Frieda and her partner Suzette Cullen relocated to Canada where she continues to produce the WINGS program.
Abby Martin
Showing Abby Martin her Award.
Photo credit: Alethea Russell at Alethea Makita Medea
Abby Martin is an American journalist, TV presenter and activist. She helped found the citizen journalism website Media Roots and serves on the board of directors of the Media Freedom Foundation, which manages Project Censored. In 2019, she launched The Empire Files: Gaza Fights for Freedom, an investigative documentary.
Ariel Dougherty
with WIFP Directors at her sides
Photo credit: Alethea Russell
at Alethea Makita Medea
Ariel Dougherty is an independent filmmaker and feminist media strategist. Her work is grounded in fifty years of media advocacy for women’s cinematic story-telling, encouraging it to unleash from patriarchal domination. Co-founder of Women Make Movies, celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2022, she has mentored hundreds of women filmmakers, produced many dozens of works, and directed eight films of her own. She writes about the intersection of feminist media, women’s rights, and funding. She is completing a book about community-based feminist teaching groups, their successes and challenges.
Katie Halper
while her Award is shown.
Photo credit: Alethea Russell at Alethea Makita Medea
Katie Halper is a journalist, writer, filmmaker, podcaster and political commentator. She began her career performing as a stand-up comedian, including performing at Netroot Nation and on the annual Seminar Cruise of The Nation magazine. She is the host of the podcast The Katie Halper Show and co-host of the podcast Useful Idiots with Matt Taibbi. The Katie Halper Show takes a humorous look at the news segments and conversations with writers, journalists, activists, artists, and political comedians.
Rania Khalek
Rania Khalek’s Award
Rania Khalek is a Lebanese-American journalist for Breakthrough News, where she hosts the show Dispatches. She also co-hosts the Unauthorized Disclosure podcast with Kevin Gosztola. Based in Beirut, Lebanon, she has written for many outlets, including The Nation, The Intercept, Al Jazeera, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), Salon, Vice, AlterNet, Truthout, and the Electronic Intifada, where she served on the editorial board. She has reported from around the world, including the Middle East, the Horn of Africa, and Latin America, where she has focuses on wars and the impact of imperialism. She has also covered social justice issues in the U.S., with a focus on racism, inequality, and police brutality.
Photo credit: Alethea Russell at Alethea Makita Medea
Kim Iversen
hold Kim Iversen’s Award
Photo credit: Alethea Russell at Alethea Makita Medea
Kim Iversen is a syndicated talk show host and co-founder of The Left Media Network, and the Kim Iversen Show. Kim as long been interested in polarization, immigration, Supreme Court rulings, policy, and social issues. She served as a spokesperson for Stop Child Trafficking Now which raises awareness and money to help victims of sex trafficking. Her mother is a Vietnamese refugee and her father is the son of a small town farmer Kim studied Philosophy with an emphasis in Ethics at the University of California – Davis.
Jennifer Barckley
Jennifer Barckley is the Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications for The Humane League, a global nonprofit ending the abuse of animals raised for food. Her life and career are centered around nourishing people and our planet – through care, curiosity, kindness, and plants.
Shireen Abu Akleh
hold Shireen Abu Akleh’s Award (to be sent to her niece)
Photo credit: Alethea Russell at Alethea Makita Medea
Shireen Abu Akleh is a palestinian-American journalist who worked for the Arab-language channel Al Jazeera for 25 years, reporting for decades in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian Territories. On May 11, 2022, while wearing a blue vest with “PRESS” written on it, she was shot and killed by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) while covering a raid. She was one of the first female field reporters in the Arab world. [Shireen’s niece Lina Abu Akleh is receiving the Award on her behalf.]
2021 Women and Media Award
Presented to Six Outstanding Women
The Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press announced the recipients of the 2021 Women and Media Award!
Six outstanding women each are receiving the 2021 Women and Media Award.
Laura Flanders
Laura Flanders interviews forward-thinking people about the key questions of our time on The Laura Flanders Show, a nationally syndicated radio and television program also available as a podcast. A contributing writer to The Nation, Flanders is also the author of six books, including The New York Times best-seller, BUSHWOMEN: Tales of a Cynical Species. She is the recipient of a 2019 Izzy Award for excellence in independent journalism, the Pat Mitchell Lifetime Achievement Award for advancing women’s and girls’ visibility in media and a 2020 Lannan Cultural Freedom Fellowship for her reporting and advocacy for public media. lauraflanders.org
Margaret Kimberley
Margaret Kimberley is a co-founder and Executive Editor and Senior Columnist for Black Agenda Report, a recipient of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromising Integrity in Journalism, and a board member of Consortium News.
Ms. Kimberley is author of the book “Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents.” She is also a contributor to the anthologies “In Defense of Julian Assange,” “Capitalism on a Ventilator: the Impact of COVID-19 on China and the U.S.,” and “Killing Trayvons: An Anthology of American Violence.” Her activism includes membership on the interim steering committee of the Green Eco-Socialist Network, the Administrative Committee of the United National Antiwar Coalition, the Coordinating Committee of Black Alliance for Peace, and the Board of Directors of the U.S. Peace Memorial Foundation.
She has appeared in national and international media including CGTN, RT, Al Mayadeen, Deutsche Welle (DW), Al Jazeera English, and Sky News. Ms. Kimberley co-hosts Black Agenda Report Presents: the Left Lens on Youtube.
Margaret Kimberley is a graduate of Williams College and lives in New York City.
https://www.margaretkimberley.com
Jennifer L. Pozner
Jennifer L. Pozner is a journalist, media critic, and Founding Director of Women In Media & News, a media analysis, education, and advocacy group dedicated to increasing women’s diversity, presence and power in public debate. Prior to founding WIMN in 2001, Pozner was Women’s Desk Director at Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), writing for Extra! magazine and contributing to CounterSpin! Radio. Previously, she was Media Watch columnist for Sojourner: The Women’s Forum. She has provided hundreds of feminist, anti-racist media literacy keynotes, workshops, and trainings throughout the U.S., Canada, Ireland and Turkey.
Her first book, Reality Bites Back: The Troubling Truth About Guilty Pleasure TV, was called “required reading for every American girl and woman” by then-MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry. Her graphic novel Breaking (The) News: Using Media Literacy To Decode What We Watch, Read, Hear, Play, Post, Buy, Believe and Enjoy is forthcoming from First Second. She has written for the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Village Voice, Newsweek, Ms. Magazine, Bitch, Bust, In These Times, Macleans, Elle Canada, Los Angeles Review of Books, Women’s Review of Books, The Daily Beast, The Establishment, Politico, and Salon, among other outlets and anthologies.
Pozner was an adviser and featured analyst for the award-winning documentary Miss Representation, appeared in Bullied and I Was a Teenaged Feminist, and wrote, produced, and starred in the media literacy satire web series, Reality Rehab with Dr. Jenn. She has offered media commentary on CBS, NBC, ABC, MSNBC, CNN, FOX, HLN, NPR, CBC, and The Daily Show. An incurable comedy nerd, the most fun she ever had as a political organizer was co-leading the satirical Billionaires for Bush (or Gore) and Billionaires for More Media Mergers as “Mya Cash, media mogul.”
Barbara Ransby, Ph.D.
Dr. Barbara Ransby is the John D. MacArthur Chair, and Distinguished Professor of History, Gender and Women’s Studies, and Black Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She directs the campus-wide Social Justice Initiative, a project that promotes connections between academics and community organizers doing work on social justice. She is also the Editor of Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture and Society, and author of three books, including the award winning, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement. The Ella Baker book was the recipient of 8 national book awards and recognitions including the Liberty – Legacy award from the Organization of American Historians; the Joan Kelly prize from the American Historical Association; and the James A. Rawley Prize (also from the AHA). Dr. Ransby is a longtime Black feminist activist, author and scholar, and has received numerous awards and recognitions for her work. She publishes regularly in various scholarly and popular venues and is past president of the National Women’s Studies Association (2016-2018). In 2017 Dr. Ransby was honored as “one of the top 25 women in higher education,” by the publication, Diverse Issues in Higher Education.
Nayoung Kim Park
Nayoung Kim Park is an adult survivor of child sexual abuse. She grew up in Seoul, South Korea and studied law and cultural anthropology at Yonsei University. She began her feminist activism with Korea Women’s Hotline, which is the oldest and largest organization combatting violence against women in South Korea. In 2014, she went to the United States to attend law school, because she wanted to learn from Catharine A. MacKinnon. She had read about how she and Andrea Dworkin tried to use civil rights law to empower those who have been victimized by pornography. During law school she was Catharine A. MacKinnon’s research assistant, taking all of her courses, and writing an independent research paper for her. Through volunteer work, internships, and clinical courses, she learned how to provide assistance to victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, and sexual harassment in employment. Nayoung Kim Park pursued a graduate certificate in Women’s Studies from the University of Michigan. In 2016, she was named a Dean’s Public Service Fellow by the University of Michigan Law School and received the Julia D. Darlow Award from the Women Lawyers Association of Michigan. She is also involved in the South Korean women’s movement and the global women’s movement, on stage, behind the scenes, and in spirit.
linkedin.com/in/nayoung-kim-a7537597
Carolyn LaDelle Bennett, Ph.D.
Dr. Carolyn LaDelle Bennett is a lifelong nonfiction writer with interests in politics, public affairs and international relations. Her worldview is informed by her U.S. Peace Corps years teaching in West Africa and engaging with native peoples and multinational expatriates. Bennett’s ethics and humanity are fundamentally informed by her formative years growing up with parents in the U.S. South and in later years traveling across the United States and to some countries of Western Europe. Having a belief in basic values of nonviolence, sovereignty of all nations and rights of all peoples to protections under law and universal conventions, she has become increasingly alarmed not by foreign threats but by internally-rooted threats to global society — Americans’ proud domestic and international code of violence manifest in endless wars and fighting words; their excused pandering, entrenched viciousness, and incompetence of public officials who have severely damaged America’s world standing and virtually destroyed any vision of The Union.
Bennett’s teaching and government experience, her credentials in educational philosophy and ethics, teaching and learning theories, journalism and public affairs (Michigan State University, PhD; American University, MA) make hers the heart of an educator who delights in sharing ideas. Her major published include: Betrayal, Public Welfare Abandoned for Private Wealth (2020); Alphabetic SOLUTIONS (2016); Unconscionable: How the World Sees Us (2014); No Land an Island: No People Apart (2012); Same Ole or Something New (2010); Breakdown (2009); Women’s Work and Words Altering World Order (2008); Missing News and Views in Paranoid Times (2006); No Room for Despair . . . Mary McLeod Bethune’s Cold War, Integration-Era Commentary (2005); Talking Back to Today’s News (2003); America’s Human Connection (1994); An Annotated Bibliography of Mary McLeod Bethune’s Chicago Defender Columns, 1948 -1955 (2001); and You Can Struggle without Hating, Fight without Violence (1988).
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2020 Women and Media Award
The Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press presented six recipients the 2020 Women and Media Award! Six outstanding women each received the annual award: Anya Parampil, Alina Duarte, Esther Iverem, Medea Benjamin, Dr. Margaret Flowers, and Eleanor Goldfield. WIFP is honored to have this opportunity to recognize their work.
Anya Parampil
Anya Parampil is the host of “Red Lines” at The Grayzone. She has produced and reported several documentaries, including on-the-ground reports from the Korean peninsula, Palestine, Venezuela, Honduras, and Bolivia.
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Alina Duarte
Independent Journalist
Former Producer and Correspondent Mexico & U.S. for TeleSUR
Former Correspondent for La Radio del Sur, Caracas, Venezuela
“I am a Xochimilca journalist, feminist, socialist, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist and anti-fascist.”
“I am originally from a magical place in the south of Mexico City called Xochimilco, specifically from a town at the top of the mountain called Santa Cecilia Tepetlapa.”
“I also assume I am a feminist. In a country marked by 10 femicides a day such as Mexico, talking about gender violence is talking about daily life in our homes, schools, factories, streets, talking about violence everywhere. Not only is patriarchal violence going through us like millions of women in the world, in Mexican territory we are also going through a civil war that was falsely called by Felipe Calderón in 2012 “ war against drug trafficking ” but that in reality was a civil war that destroyed our country and whose consequences we continue to pay every day, especially women, our women’s bodies are trafficked, raped, beaten, violated in a thousand ways every day. It seems that being Mexican implies that speaking out as a feminist is only a matter of time, it is trying to avoid that death sentence that becomes inevitable for you and for the women around you. I discovered violence after violence, bullet after bullet. The names of the women we most admire, love, love, have become plaques on monuments and on the streets that demand justice.”
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Margaret Flowers
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Esther Iverem
Author, Artist and Activist
Esther Iverem is a multi-disciplinary writer, artist, curator and independent journalist. Her diverse body of work, which includes a show on Pacifica Radio, four books, two digital media projects and several visual art exhibits, is about social justice and human existence. She is a recipient of numerous awards and honors, including a 2018 Fellowship in the Humanities from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and a National Arts Journalism Fellowship at Columbia University.
Radio Host and Producer of “On The Ground Show.”
Former Professor at Howard University
Former Culture Writer and Critic at The Washington Post
Former journalist at New York Newsday
Former journalist at The New York Times
Studied journalism at Columbia University
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Medea Benjamin
Medea Benjamin is the co-founder of the women-led peace group CODEPINK and the co-founder of the human rights group Global Exchange. She has been an advocate for social justice for more than 40 years. Described as “one of America’s most committed — and most effective — fighters for human rights” by New York Newsday, and “one of the high profile leaders of the peace movement” by the Los Angeles Times, she was one of 1,000 exemplary women from 140 countries nominated to receive the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the millions of women who do the essential work of peace worldwide.
She is the author of ten books, including Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control and Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the U.S.-Saudi Connection. Her most recent book, Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran, is part of a campaign to prevent a war with Iran and instead promote normal trade and diplomatic relations.
Her articles appear regularly in outlets such as The Guardian, The Huffington Post, CommonDreams, Alternet and The Hill. Medea can be reached at: medea@codepink.org or @
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Eleanor Goldfield
Journalist, Filmmaker, Creative Activist
Eleanor Goldfield is a creative radical, journalist and filmmaker. Her reporting work has appeared on Press TV, RT America, and Free Speech TV where she produced and hosted the weekly radical news show, Act Out! for five years. It was the second most watched program on the network.
Her print work has appeared via Mint Press News, ROAR, Popular Resistance, Truthdig and more.She is currently a board member of the Media Freedom Foundation.
Her first documentary, “Hard Road of Hope,” covers past and present radicalism in the resource colony known as West Virginia. Thus far, the film has garnered international praise, a best woman filmmaker award and has Official Selection laurels in 8 film festivals including Cannes Independent.
Previously, she founded, fronted and managed the political hard rock band, Rooftop Revolutionaries who released four albums and toured throughout the United States, opening for celebrity acts such as Tom Morello on several occasions. Their music has appeared in films, on radio and TV.
Her first book, a compilation of spoken word poetry, Paradigm Lost, was released in 2016 and received critical acclaim for the combination of radical poetry and radical visual art, as each poem is accompanied by artwork from artists around the world such as Tammam Azzam, Recycled Propaganda, Lucy Dyer and more.
Currently, Eleanor is the host of the podcast Act Out! and the co-host of the podcast Common Censored along with Lee Camp as well as the Silver Threads Podcast with carla bergman. She regularly contributes to several other podcasts including By Any Means Necessary, Economic Update with Richard Wolff, Fault Lines and more.
Her work as a community organizer is based on mutual aid principles and direct action.
As an artist, her work typically combines live music, spoken word and projected visuals. Besides touring, performing and media work, she also assists in frontline action organizing and activist trainings.
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Previous Recipients:
2019
Luci Murphy
Alethea Russell presented Luci Murphy with WIFP’s Women and Media Award at the Activist Salon, July 17, 2019. (Photo: Luci Murphy, Martha Allen, Alethea Russell)
Luci Murphy is a preeminent advocate for utilizing culture to advance social and political justice, weaving people together across communities. As an artist and performer, she has harnessed her musical talents by singing for social justice, civil rights, union rights, affordable housing, peace, and other cause. She has a long history of community activism, beginning in the fifth grade when she got her female classmates to sign a petition for the girls to go out and play on the playground. There was a recreation period when the boys were sent out on the playground while the girls stayed inside.
She has been an associate producer of Sophie’s Parlor Women’s Radio Collective at WPFW 89.3 FM, the Pacifica Station in D.C. and member the D.C. Afro Latino Caucus. In 1981 she visited Lebanon to observe Palestinian Refugee Camps, in 1978 China just before the normalization of relations with the U.S., Brazil for a grass-roots organizing conference in 1979, and Cuba in the 80s to oppose U.S. travel restrictions.
A past president of the D.C. League of Women Voters, she has also served on the Steering Committees of the People’s Music Network, “Health Care Now!,” and Washington Inner-city Self Help. She has also been the convener of the Gray Panthers of Metro D.C. To facilitate greater understanding between African Americans and Latinos, she tutors anti-racist activists in Spanish. Currently she sings with the SGI New Century Chorus and the D.C. Labor Chorus.
In 2007, she received the Paul Robeson Award for Peace and Justice from the Friends of the People’s Weekly World. In 2012 the Emergence Community Arts Collective gave her its IN HER HONOR Award. In 2016 she received the JOE HILL AWARD from the Labor Heritage Foundation.
2018
Angela Peabody
June 23, 2018
Angela Peabody is the President and Founder of Global Woman P.E.A.C.E. Foundation, an organization whose mission is to empower women and girls through education to eradicate gender-based violence, with special emphasis on female genital mutilation (FGM). Global Woman’s annual “Walk to End FGM” has been growing since the first year in 2014. It’s many programs are described on the website globalwomanpeacefoundation.org.
Angela is the former Chair of the Washington, D.C. Chapter of the National Writers Union. She is a writer and activist dedicated to improving the lives of women, particularly women experiencing gender violence.
WIFP is proud to have worked together with Angela Peabody and Global Woman for many years, including at the First Annual “Walk to End FGM”. Director’s Elana Anderson and Martha Allen were delighted to have the opportunity to present WIFP’s 2018 Women and Media Award to Angela Peabody during our “Activist Salon” on June 23, 2018.
Angela Peabody spoke eloquently about sharing this award with all those at Global Woman who share her vision.
Activist Salon: www.wifp.org/womens-media/women-and-media-award/
2017
Vinie Burrows
July 13, 2017
Sunaya Padmanabhan announcing the 2017 Women and Media Award,
sharing the description below with participants at WIFP’s 45th Anniversary Celebration. Martha Allen, WIFP Director, is holding the Award. Vinie Burrows was unable to receive it in person because she is performing in Midsummer’s Night Dream.
Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press is deeply honored to present Vinie Burrows with the 2017 Women’s Media Award. Activist, storyteller, and actor only begin to describe the role of Dr. Burrows in advancing media representations of women of color. She holds a Bachelor’s and a Master’s Degree in Performing Arts from NYU, followed by an Honorary Doctorate from Paine College as an Activist and Scholar. Her education demonstrates the moving integration of racial representation and theatrical performance that guides her purpose in life. As a result of her disappointment in these one sided portrayals of life and the world, Ms. Burrows created and produced a series of eight one-woman shows. 
Her body of work illustrates a subversion of the traditional white dominant roles in plays and cinema. She has performed over six-thousand shows all across Europe, and most recently, Russia. This extraordinary Emmy- nominated actress, who began her career on Broadway, found her voice as an activist for South Africans. In order to further her goals of peace and racial equality, she works as the Permanent Representative for the Women’s International Democratic Federation- an NGO with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. She actively pursues the encouragement of women’s rights and social and economic stability in South Africa. Her support of female equality extends globally, especially to WIFP, where she has been affiliated since 1980. Her continued contributions to the multi-faceted representations of people of color in theatre and the incredible political work to attain peace in South Africa makes her a splendid and truly deserving recipient of the Women’s Media Award.
Her body of work illustrates a subversion of the traditional white dominant roles in plays and cinema. She has performed over six-thousand shows all across Europe, and most recently, Russia. This extraordinary Emmy- nominated actress, who began her career on Broadway, found her voice as an activist for South Africans. In order to further her goals of peace and racial equality, she works as the Permanent Representative Website: http://www.vinieburrows.com/
June 23, 2016
The Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press presented the 2016 Women in Media Award to Soraya Chemaly, a writer and activist focused on the role of gender in culture, politics, religion, and media.
In the summer of 2015 Soraya gave a TED talk at the Barcelona Women conference. She presented “The Credibility Gap: How Sexism Shapes Human Knowledge.” At this talk she discussed an article she wrote concerning how gender is addressed in public spaces, specifically how men’s bathrooms are larger than women’s even though women routinely need the bathroom more and for longer periods of time (due to breastfeeding, periods, etc.). She said this article, written for TIME and called, “The Everyday Sexism of Women Waiting in Public Toilet Lines” is the one for which she has received the most backlash and verbal abuse. This was shocking
to her because many of her other articles contain stories of violent gender-based crimes often of a sexual nature, yet it was an article about how women deserve larger public restrooms that was the cause of public outcry.
Recently, Soraya has written about the role gender plays in the ongoing 2016 Presidential Election. At a rally in Spokane, Washington Donald Trump said Democratic Presidential Nominee Hillary Clinton is “playing the woman card.” In response, Soraya wrote the article “How Ted Cruz, Bernie Sanders, and Other Men Play the Gender Card” where she explained how men constantly bring their gender to the front of their campaigns. She said by being recognized first and foremost for their political ideals and not having to discuss their gender these candidates are themselves playing the male card. 
Another powerful article Soraya published in May 2016 on The Huffington Post’s website deals specifically with the Washington D.C. Metro Area. In the article, “D.C. Metro Rape Highlights Why Women Are Always Aware of Rape,” she discusses how threats of sexual assault, harassment, and stalking are prevalent to women in the Metro area and to women who use public transit across the world. Soraya encapsulates the threats women face on public transit, writing:
We aren’t walking around petrified, saying to ourselves, “I could get raped today,” eagerly anticipating having legendary victimhood status, but by the time we are adults, at school, going to work, shopping for food, we have all been taught to adapt silently to the threat, and society’s leveraging of that threat to limit our public and civic engagement.
Through her many articles and presentations Soraya has shown time and time again that she is an eloquent speaker and a thoughtful researcher, able to pinpoint and comment on the problematic parts of gender treatment and expression in today’s society with accuracy and considerate judgment. In 2013, she won the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication’s (AEJMC)’s Donna Allen Award for Feminist Advocacy and the Secular Woman Feminist Activism Award. Now Soraya has been awarded the 2016 Women and Media Award from the Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press. 
Currently, Soraya is the Director of the Women’s Media Center Speech Project and the organizer of the Safety and Free Speech Coalition. She has written for The Huffington Post, The Feminist Wire, The Guardian, TIME Magazine, The Atlantic, Rolling Stone Magazine, and other assorted newspapers and magazines. Soraya serves on the boards of multiple organizations including: Women, Action and The Media, In This Together Media, No Bully, and the Women’s Media Center.
~ by Angelica Sisson, WIFP
2015
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, PhD
May 29, 2015
The Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press has great privilege in presenting Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz Ph.D. with the 2015 Women and Media Award. Her grandfather’s work as a labor activist and socialist inspired her to become a historian, feminist, and social justice advocate. While completing her Doctorate in History, from the University of California Los Angeles, she worked in the women’s liberation movement. In her teaching career at Cal State Hayward, she taught intersectionally, combining both Native American ethnic studies and women’s rights. She has greatly benefitted the Native American community, after joining the American Indian Council, in 1974, focusing on the importance of self-determination and international human rights. She presented her first book, The Great Sioux Nation: An Oral History of the Sioux Nation and its Struggle for Sovereignty (1977), at the first international conference on Indians of the Americas, held in Switzerland, at the UN headquarters. Bringing attention to connections across cultures, she denounced the Discovery Doctrine and the colonialism that devastated Native Americans, to the mistreatment of Muslims, within the United States. Addressing the strife of multiple cultures, in the oppressions that they face through the media, exemplifies the ideals of change required to make an impact and further the path to equality. Incredibly accomplished and distinguished in her field, WIFP is overjoyed to present Dr. Dubar-Ortiz with the 2015 Women and Media Award.
~ by Sunaya Padmanabhan, WIFP
May 29, 2015
Award presented by WIFP’s Alethea Russell
Website link: http://www.reddirtsite.com/
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2014
Tobe Levin, PhD
April 6, 2014
Tobe Levin Ph.D. is the truly deserving recipient of the 2014 Women and Media Award, from WIFP. Her work as an activist, professor, and translator have created great positive impact within her community. Graduating from NYU Paris with an M.A. in French, and later a Ph.D. from Cornell University in Comparative Literature, prepared her well for her lengthy career in various research and academic positions. Working as a non-resident fellow in the early 2000s, for the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, she now works as the Associate of The Hutchins Center at Harvard, under the directorship of Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. Her background working in African studies prepared her for her future as an activist against Female Genital Mutilation practices or FGM. She is on the board of various academic journals surrounding this important topic, such as the Journal on Female Genital Mutilation and Other Harmful Traditional Practices (Inter- African Committee, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia). Published in over 100 academic articles, her body of work proves very impressive and significant in bringing about awareness and activism against FGM. In 2009, she founded UnCut/Voices Press where she blogs about the violences committed against girls using FGM. Her truly revolutionary work and inspiring dedication to her cause inspires and follows with the mission of WIFP, therefore, we are truly honored to present her with the 2014 Women and Media Award.
~ by Sunaya Padmanabhan, WIFP
Award presented by WIFP’s Assoc. Director Elana Anderson, PhD
April 6, 2014
Website links:
https://nofgm.org/category/tobe-levin/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobe_Levin
https://uncutvoices.wordpress.com/
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August 1, 2013
WIFP is genuinely honored to present Maurine Beasley Ph.D. with the 2013 Women and Media Award. Former writer for the Washington Post, she focused on the portrayal and contribution of women in their own media representations. Attaining her journalism degree from the University of Missouri and Columbia University, and her Ph.D. in American Civilization from George Washington University served her well in her illustrious teaching career. As a Fulbright Scholar, she taught journalism at Jian University in China. Later on in her teaching at Maryland, she intertwined her love of the media with feminist activism by leading classes on women in the media and the history of journalism. She has published many works illuminating the relationship between women and the media, and has received extensive praise for these contributions. Therefore, as she has dedicated her life to the ideals of the WIFP she is a truly deserving recipient of the 2013 Women and Media Award.
~ by Sunaya Padmanabhan, WIFP
