Mark Lagerkvist

Cheers! Year after year, the IRE Awards competition showcases the skill, dedication and excellence of its winners and entrants. It demonstrates IRE’s enormous contributions to the betterment of journalism, public service and society as a whole.

Yet IRE is missing out by not doing more to promote and publicize its winners – and itself as the world’s leading proponent of investigative journalism. When I won an IRE Award 40 years ago, it was on the national wires and the phone kept ringing. Perhaps I’m mistaken, but now it seems like IRE Awards don’t get the attention they really deserve – individually and collectively.

We can do better – and that’s why I’m running for the contest committee.

For openers, the categories themselves sound so institutional and bureaucratic – Print/Online I thru IV? Video I thru IV? Large audio and small audio? That does little to create interest to some of the best reporting on the planet, nor does it add much sparkle to the winner’s resume.

The annual awards announcement resembles a one-day data dump that arrives with too-little fanfare. Why not increase exposure by staggering the releases, allowing winners of each major category to get the notice they deserve? For example: Look at how the Noble Prizes sequence their celebrations. Or how Major League Baseball spaces out its MVP, Cy Young, Rookie of the Year, Manager of the Year announcements.

In the past, IRE conferences featured a dedicated track to feature contest winners. Now we don’t. Maybe it’s time to take a fresh look at what we can do to give our members more opportunity to see this great work. To be fair, each winning entry deserves more exposure than a one-minute blurb between lunch courses at an annual banquet.

My qualifications? During my distinguished career as an investigative journalist, I’ve worked for newspapers, networks, local television, online news sites, magazines and radio. A few highlights:

• Former IRE Board member with a long history of service. First joined IRE in 1976 as part of the historic inaugural conference in Indianapolis.
• Winner of an IRE Award – plus 70 other journalism honors, including top prizes from National Press Club, Scripps-Howard and many others.
• Served as an IRE contest screening judge for the past three years.
• Founder, chief organizer and promoter of the legendary Blues Bash party, which raised $38,000 for IRE during its 14-year run (1999-2012).

For more details, visit https://lagerkvist.online/. Thank you for your consideration.