NABJ Awards GlobalGirl Media’s Imani Crenshaw with its Gannett Foundation Award

WASHINGTON, D.C. (June 6, 2013) – The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) is proud to announce that Imani Crenshaw, reporter and producer for GlobalGirl Media, will receive of the organization’s Gannett Foundation Award for Innovation in Watchdog Journalism for the webisode series, "Como Amar/How to Love.” 

The $5,000 award, funded by a grant from the Gannett Foundation, recognizes groundbreaking journalists in their quest to help communities understand and address important issues through creativity and the use of digital tools. The award will be presented at the 38th Annual NABJ Convention and Career Fair in Orlando, FL, on July 31 during the opening ceremony.

"NABJ is committed to raising awareness of issues that affect communities of color and the ‘How to Love’ series does an excellent job of addressing hot-button issues including body image, teen pregnancy, and the state of health education in schools,” said NABJ President Gregory Lee, Jr. "We are proud to partner with the Gannett Foundation to recognize our member Imani Crenshaw and GlobalGirl Media for their impactful work."

GlobalGirl Media worked with a group of young women in Los Angeles to produce an original webisode series, titled "Como Amar” (How to Love), helping them develop news literacy, digital production and critical thinking skills which will amplify their views and concerns about health and sexuality today.

Crenshaw’s episode on body image explored media interpretations of women, provided personal accounts from teen girls on how they feel about their bodies, and featured interviews with scholars about how societal views on beauty promote competition between women and poor self-image in young girls.   

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Crenshaw joined GlobalGirl Media in 2011 as a reporter. She is studying broadcast journalism at Hampton University and she said this award will help her pursue her goals.

"I want to thank NABJ and the Gannett Foundation for selecting me and GlobalGirl Media to receive this exceptional award.  Receiving this prestigious honor at such a young age is inspiring to me and has boosted my confidence. I plan to have a distinguished career as a broadcast journalist. This award has given me the financial boost that I needed in order to continue my educational journey and pursue my journalism goals. To win a national award shows me and hopefully will show other young journalists that faith, hard work, and dedication can bring much success.”

GlobalGirl Media, a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization, is dedicated to empowering high school age girls from under-served communities around the world through media, leadership and journalistic training to have a voice in the global media universe and their own futures. The organization supplies the equipment, education and support necessary to help young women become digital and blog journalists, bringing their own unique perspective on their lives, their communities and world events to the global web and social media community.

"We are thrilled to be honored by NABJ for Imani's work and the overall mission of GlobalGirl Media, which is to empower young women through new digital media to tell their stories, which we see as critical to building a stronger, safer, and more diverse global news network that champions women," said Amie Williams, Executive Director and Co-Founder of GlobalGirl Media.

For more information on GlobalGirl Media, please visit http://globalgirlmedia.org/. Click here to watch the series, "Como Amar (How to Love).”

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An advocacy group established in 1975 in Washington, D.C., NABJ is the largest organization for journalists of color in the nation, and provides career development as well as educational and other support to its members worldwide. For more information, please visit www.nabj.org.