History Awards
Leibner Cooper Grant
The LABF, in association with the Broadcast Education Association, awards the Leibner Cooper Grant for Creative Productions on the History of Media each year to a faculty member who is producing a documentary, news story, multimedia project or sports production focused on historical issues, figures and/or events related to media.
Jason Lee Guthrie
The recipient of the $2,500 grant is recognized at the LABF Giants of Broadcasting & the Electronics Arts luncheon in New York City and at BEA’s annual awards ceremony in Las Vegas. The grant is made possible through the generosity of the Liebner Cooper Family Foundation.
The 2023 prize was awarded to Jason Lee Guthrie for his Recollecting Carter podcast series that explores the life of the former president.
The series includes oral history interviews with journalists, archivists, and academic experts, as well as archival media from the 1960s to the present day. “This is an especially appropriate topic for the Leibner Cooper grant, as so much of Carter’s campaign success, Presidential struggles, and the narrative about his legacy has been shaped by modern media,” Guthrie said upon receiving the award.
The pilot episode had been recognized with an Award of Excellence in the Faculty Audio competition at BEA On-Location 2022.
Guthrie is an assistant professor of communication and media studies at Clayton State University. As a media historian, he is primarily interested in the production cultures of creative industries. His doctoral work focused on how early American content creators interpreted and used copyright. Guthrie holds a Ph.D. in Mass Communication from the University of Georgia.
About the Broadcast Education Association: BEA is the premiere international academic media organization, driving insights, excellence in media production, and career advancement for educators, students, and professionals. There are currently more than 2,300 individual and institutional members worldwide. Visit www.beaweb.org for more information.
About the Leibner Cooper Family Foundation. The foundation is that of Carole Cooper and Richard Leibner. The couple has nurtured and advanced the careers of many of the leading journalists of our time. For more than 50 years, their talent agency N.S. Bienstock has represented such talent as Anderson Cooper, Megyn Kelly, Steve Kroft, David Muir, Norah O’Donnell, Robin Roberts, Bill Whitaker, among many others. Bienstock was acquired by United Talent Agency in 2014, but it remains under the management of Leibner and Cooper.
To apply for the award, go to the BEA website here.
The Broadcast Historian Award
Since 2015, the LABF, in association with the Broadcast Education Association, presents the Broadcast Historian Award to an educator for historical work related to broadcasting. The $5,000 award is given to an author (Book Award) or a producer of a documentary/multimedia project (Creative Award) in alternating years.
The 2022 prize went to Craig Allen, of Arizona State University, for his book, Univision, Telemundo and the Rise of Spanish-Language Television in the United States.
Craig Allen
The book is the first comprehensive history of U.S. Spanish-language television. Drawing from 10 years of archival research and original interviews, it reveals the inside story behind the Spanish-language networks Univision and Telemundo, how they fought against enormous odds and finally rose as giants of mass communication in the mostly English-speaking United States.
The book argues that other scholars have focused almost exclusively on English-language television in the U.S., and overlooked the contributions of Spanish-language television.
Much of the book traces the rise of Mexican broadcast pioneer Emilio Azcárraga Vidaurreta, who founded Univision as the U.S.’s fourth television network.
The history also covers the many Americans who directed Univision and Telemundo over the years and who deserve a place among the U.S. mass media’s foremost pioneers.
Allen is an associate professor at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University and chair of the ASU University Hearing Board. He is a former associate dean of the Barrett Honors College, past president of ASU’s University Senate, and past member of the ASU General Studies Council.
Allen has written extensively on television history, political media, presidential communication and international mass media. His other books include News Is People: The Rise of Local TV News (2001) and Eisenhower and the Mass Media (1994).
A review in Electronic Media recognized News Is People as the “best book ever written on the history of television news.” His articles have appeared in the Journal of American History, Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, and Presidential Studies Quarterly.
About the Broadcast Education Association: BEA is the premiere international academic media organization, driving insights, excellence in media production, and career advancement for educators, students, and professionals. There are currently more than 2,300 individual and institutional members worldwide. Visit www.beaweb.org for more information.
To apply for the 2024 award, go to the BEA website here.
LABF Graduate Student Scholarship
To encourage scholarship in broadcast history, the LABF and Broadcast Education Association have established an annual $3,000 scholarship for graduate students of the history. The leadership of the BEA History Division will assist the LABF, BEA staff and scholarship committee in the outreach and selection process.
The scholarship will go to one graduate studenteach year to support work on their dissertation in broadcast history. Upon completion of the dissertation, the recipient is obliged to donate copies to the Library of American Broadcasting to retain as part of their collection.
About the Broadcast Education Association: BEA is the premiere international academic media organization, driving insights, excellence in media production, and career advancement for educators, students, and professionals. There are currently more than 2,300 individual and institutional members worldwide. Visit www.beaweb.org for more information.