Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Back to Opinion

Forward Wins Five Ippies for Multimedia and Print

The Forward took home three awards for multimedia as well as honors for best overall print design Thursday night in the Ippies contest sponsored by the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.

The annual Ippies competition pays tribute to excellence in journalism in the ethnic and community press in the New York City area.

Nate Lavey, the Forward’s digital media producer, won both first- and second-place honors in the best video category. He won the top video prize for “Living Apart in Crown Heights,” in which he combined contemporary images and interviews and historical photos to tell the story of the racial tensions that led to the riots and how the neighborhood is faring today.

He won a second-place video award for “Naming Mushky,” the story of thousands of girls in the worldwide Lubavitch Hasidic community who were named after Chaya Mushka Schneerson, the late wife of the Lubavitcher rebbe.

The paper’s art director, Kurt Hoffman, received a first-place award for best overall design of a print publication.

Second-place honors went to Gabrielle Birkner, director of digital media, for overall design of an online publication. Gal Beckerman, opinion editor, won a second-place award for multimedia package for “Crown Heights, 20 Years Later.” Beckerman edited a combination of news stories, opinion pieces, the video and a photo slideshow on the Crown Heights anniversary.

The Ippies Awards were judged by faculty and adjuncts at the City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism and other professional journalists. This year, the competition attracted 240 entries across 10 categories from 46 community and ethnic news organizations. The first-place awards carried prizes ranging from $750 to $1,500.

The ceremony was held at the CUNY journalism school. Veteran TV broadcaster Connie Chung delivered the keynote remarks. Errol Louis, host of NY1’s “Inside City Hall,” was the emcee. In keeping with the theme of the night, foods from India, Haiti, Senegal, France and China were served at a pre-awards reception.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.