Re: 4/19/02 - Hartford Courant: Courant Article Wins Award
Courant Article Wins Award
April 19, 2002
By PETER DOWNS, Courant Staff Writer
A Hartford Courant article on the Yale University instructor implicated in the murder of college student Suzanne Jovin has won an inaugural award for fairness in newspapers.
The article was written by staff writer Les Gura and was published in the Sunday Courant's Northeast magazine. It focused on James Van de Velde, Jovin's instructor and thesis adviser, and the way New Haven police and the media portrayed him as a suspect. Van de Velde was not arrested and police produced no evidence linking him to the crime.
"I'm honored to win this first Taylor Family Award," Gura said. "Fairness is one of the highest standards in our profession, and an important one to recognize."
The Taylor Family Award for Fairness in Newspapers was established through gifts for an endowment from the Taylor family, which published The Boston Globe from 1872 to 1999. The purpose of the award is to encourage fairness in news coverage by America's daily newspapers.
"This is a newspaper's effort to balance the scales of justice until the judicial process can run its course," said John Haile, former editor of the Orlando Sentinel, who nominated Gura's article.
"I only hope that the family of Suzanne Jovin eventually will obtain some sense of closure with a justifiable arrest and prosecution," Gura said, "and that other people affected by the course of events, such as James Van de Velde, can eventually move on successfully with their lives."
Gura's piece was selected from among four finalists. The Taylor Award judges also recognized works by the Baltimore Sun, the Chicago Tribune and the New Orleans Times-Picayne.
Gura and the finalists will be recognized at a dinner and panel discussion April 25 at the Harvard Faculty Club in Cambridge, Mass. Gura also receives a $10,000 prize as the Taylor Award winner.
The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University administers the award program.
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