2013 marks a new chapter in the 24-year history of the Utne Reader staff recognizing and celebrating the best of what we read. Formerly called the Utne Independent Press Awards, we’ve decided to contemporize the name and call them the Utne Media Awards.
Considering the wealth of amazing new ideas, exceptional writing, and outstanding journalism taking place on the internet, we think it’s time the name of the award encompass every form of mass communication we come across each day from longform print journalism to video blogs. While we still love and will always celebrate the printed word, we’d be remiss not to recognize the democratization of information made possible by the internet. We think emphasizing the broad term “media” allows us to appropriately consider and recognize all of the ways people communicate with one another in the 21st century.
Of course, the best way to make that point is to simply refer you to the list of 36 nominees for the 2013 award, most of which have been featured in the pages of Utne Reader in one way or another over the last year. As has always been the case with this award, the selection process is arduous and sometimes even a bit contentious, but only because the staff wishes we could find a way to recognize every one of our favorites.
The winners in each category will be announced at the Magazine Publishers of America’s Independent Magazine Media Conference in New Orleans in May and published in our July/August 2013 issue. To all the publications and websites nominated, congratulations on yet another year of inspirational work. So without further delay, here are the nominees:
