NOMINATIONS PAST RECIPIENTS
The Mitchell V. Charnley Award was established in 1968. It is given each year to an individual working, or with roots, in the six-state Northwest Broadcast News Association region, who has made outstanding contributions to the field of broadcast journalism.
Mitch Charnley was a teacher, an editor, a writer, a great friend, a quick wit, and a legend. He was one of the founders of NBNA and the model on which the Charnley Award is based.
Charnley was born in Goshen, Indiana on April 9, 1898. He received his undergraduate degree from Williams College in 1919 and a Master’s degree from the University of Washington in 1921. He was a reporter for the Honolulu Star Bulletin, worked on the rewrite desk of the Detroit News and as an editor of American Boy Magazine and Short Stories Magazine. He was a free-lance writer in Europe and Algeria. He taught at Iowa State College before joining the University of Minnesota’s school of journalism in 1934. He stayed there three decades, retiring in June of 1966.
Charnley was often published in Journalism Quarterly, Quill, Columbia Journalism Review, and the Saturday Review of Literature. He wrote three textbooks: Reporting, News by Radio and Magazine Writing and Editing. The four editions of his reporting textbook have been the primary “how-to” guides for generations of aspiring journalists. In the preface of the fourth edition, he wrote, “Reporting is a craft, and it is an art. And it is much more. It is a principal instrument for building and holding firm the kind of society a democratic people want.”
Charnley “kept current” on the practice of journalism and broadcasting by helping found WCCO Radio’s first full-scale newsroom in 1943 and serving in the KSTP newsroom in 1952. He received numerous journalism awards, including the 1963 Distinguished Achievement Award of the Radio Television News Directors Association and Sigma Delta Chi’s Distinguished Teaching in Journalism Award.
Mitch Charnley passed away on February 16, 1991 at the age of 92.
Among his many students was Eric Sevareid, for whom our annual awards for excellence in journalism are named.
To nominate someone to receive the Matchell V. Charnley Award, please contact us.
Previous winners of the Mitchell V. Charnley Award include:
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2011 Doug Lund
2010 Steve Murphy 2009 Dick Heidt 2008 Michele Norris |
2007 James Paulson
2006 Brian Ross 2005 Al Aamodt 2004 Steve Hemmingsen 2003 Jill Geisler 2002 Ray Christensen 2001 Eric Sevareid 2000 Hattie Kauffman 1999 Marv Bossart 1998 Dick Chapman |
1997 Tom Bier
1996 Tom Brokaw 1995 Henry Lippold 1994 Dick Record 1993 Susan Wiese 1992 Ron Handberg 1991 Stanley S. Hubbard 1990 Terry Anderson 1989 Bob Ryan 1988 Steve Murphy |
1987 John Froyd
1986 William Krueger 1985 Edwin Newman 1984 Irving Fang 1983 Dave Moore 1982 E. W. “Easy” Ziebarth 1981 Phil Jones 1980 Curtis Beckmann 1979 Dewey Heggen 1978 Chuck Bundlie |
1977 Jack Gennaro
1976 Gordy Kilgore 1975 Grant Price 1974 Norm Schrader 1973 Bob Jones 1972 Dick Petrik 1971 Sig Mickelson 1970 Jack Shelley 1969 Jim Bormann 1968 Harry Reasoner |
