 |  About the Awards
Murray Kempton (1917-1997) was a rarity among newspaper columnists, a self-effacing humanist bemused at his own leftist politics and filled with compassion for the downtrodden and notorious alike. He worked the streets, courthouses and government lairs into his 80s. He pedaled to assignments on his three-speed bicycle, metal clips protecting the cuffs of his sedate three-piece suits as jazz filled his headphones. Back in the office, he interpreted the world's complexities through irony, baroque sentences and erudite references that challenged readers; in return, he offered dazzling insight. Kempton had a sharp wit and keen distaste for hypocrisy. He started reporting at the then-left-leaning New York Post before World War II, worked at other New York dailies and ended his career at Newsday, where he won the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for commentary. When the Society of Silurians, a New York journalism group, honored him in 1996, Kempton described a lesson learned at the Post. For his first Christmas, his labor-beat sources gave him 150 bottles of "reasonably good" whiskey. After a year of trenchant reporting, he got two. "I realized ... that I would never in the future have any sources, and I could henceforth be an outsider, and I was simply stuck with watching the game and ending up most of the time in the lonely honor of the loser's dressing room." That, he made clear, was the perfect place to be. The Murray Kempton Awards, named for the famed columnist who captured the soul of the city while often serving as its conscience, recognize the contributions of outstanding undergraduate student journalists at the City University of New York. This year, responding to a fast-changing media business landscape and the critical survival issues faced by old journalistic media, a new $1,000 prize will also be awarded to the CUNY non-journalism student submitting the Best New Media Business Plan by Aug. 27, 2009. |