It is a pleasure to announce the recipient of the 2020 ONA Community Award is Doug Mitchell, honored for his decades-long dedication to increasing diversity in radio and creating community and mentorship opportunities for journalists of color and young journalists.
Doug Mitchell is the Founder and Project Director of NPR’s Next Generation Radio. Now celebrating its 20th year, NextGen is a weeklong digital journalism and audio training program designed to connect participants with the skills and opportunity to produce their own multimedia story. Doug also serves as a program consultant for the International Women’s Media Foundation, Chair of the Board for the Center for Collaborative Journalism at Mercer University, a member of the Board of Trustees of the American Press Institute and advisor to the CEO of A Beautiful Mind Foundation, a nonprofit focused on mental health.
“Doug Mitchell’s contribution to journalism reaches far and wide,” said writer, editor and digital strategy consultant Meena Thiruvengadam. “Part of his legacy is that each of us whose careers he has touched are committed to paying it forward and making journalism a better place for all of us.”
Watch the announcement video to learn more about Doug’s contribution to the industry and why the deserves this honor, plus hear reflections from Doug himself in his acceptance speech.
We created the ONA Community Award in 2018 to recognize an individual or small team that has made outsize contributions to online journalism, particularly by working behind the scenes to create tools or environments that enable digital journalists to do their best work. The selection committee determines the winner from a pool of nominations submitted by ONA members.
The inaugural recipient was OpenNews director Erika Owens, recognized for her work to build community and define career paths for developers and designers in journalism. In 2019, we honored the Journalists of Color Slack Administrators — Aaron Williams, Sisi Wei, Tauhid Chappell, Erik Reyna, Julia B. Chan, Lam Thuy Vo and Lo Bénichou — for creating a highly engaged support network where journalists of color connect on project ideas, trending topics in the industry and career opportunities.
For more journalism awards celebration, join us online for ONA20 Everywhere (Oct. 1–16), during which we will announce winners of 42 awards across 19 categories of the 2020 OJAs.