CFR.org Crisis Guides Win First Prize in Knight-Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism

September 18, 2007—CFR.org’s “Crisis Guides” won the $2,000 First Prize in the Knight-Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism. The multimedia guides use interactive tools to provide context and historical perspective to the world’s most complex issues, such as Darfur and the Korean Peninsula. “This is an institution stepping up and honoring the best of journalism. It’s filling an absolutely articulated need,” the judges said.

“We’re honored to receive this prestigious award,” said Richard N. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. “We’re also extremely proud of the Crisis Guides and the CFR.org team who worked so hard to produce them. These guides reflect our core mission—to be an independent, nonpartisan resource on the foreign policy issues facing the United States and the world.”

Michael Moran, executive editor of CFR.org, accepted the award yesterday at the National Press Club. CFR.org will produce as many as ten additional guides in the upcoming year, the next of which will focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and climate change.

The Knight-Batten Awards, administered by J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism at the University of Maryland and funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, spotlight the creative use of new information ideas and technologies to involve citizens in public issues. Also in the running for the First Prize were entries from the Washington Post, Reuters, the Orlando Sentinel, and Wired magazine. The Crisis Guides are produced in conjunction with Media Storm (http://mediastorm.org/), a New York-based digital production house.

CFR Communications, 212-434-9888, [email protected]