Type Media Center is honored to partner with Ridenhour Prizes as they announce their 2024 winners. The winners will be awarded their distinction on March 28, 2024, at the 20th Annual Ridenhour Prizes Gala in Washington, D.C.
Emma Pildes and Tia Lessin will be awarded the Ridenhour Documentary Film Prize for their 2022 HBO Documentary film ‘The Janes.’
‘The Janes’ is the story of an underground network of women in Chicago in the late 1960s and early ‘70s who provided safe, affordable, illegal abortions to women in need. Defying the state legislature that outlawed abortion, the Catholic Church that condemned it, and the Chicago Mob that was profiting from it, the members of Jane risked their personal and professional lives to help women in need.
Dawn Wooten will be awarded the Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling, which is annually presented to a citizen, corporate or government whistleblower, investigative journalist, or organization for bringing a specific issue of social importance to the public’s attention.
Ms. Wooten was a nurse at the Irwin County Detention Center, where she witnessed and spoke out against medical misconduct and critical failures at the ICE-contracted facility to protect immigrants in detention and workers from COVID-19. These explosive revelations incited passionate calls for reform from immigration justice organizations, medical professionals, and members of Congress.
Congressman Jamie Raskin has been chosen to receive the Ridenhour Courage Prize, for his extraordinary and inspiring public service in defense of the Constitution in the wake of serious domestic threats to democracy and the rule of law.
Congressman Raskin is the U.S. Representative for Maryland’s 8th Congressional District. He serves as the Ranking Member on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability. He served as the Lead House Manager in the second Senate impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump, which ended with a 57-43 vote to convict the president for inciting a violent insurrection against the government to overthrow the 2020 presidential election.
Lea Ypi will be awarded the Ridenhour Book Prize for her memoir, Free: Coming of Age at the End of History.
The book captures Ypi’s recollections of coming of age during the collapse of communist Albania in December 1990 and the paradoxes of freedom that came with a presumably freer democratic and capitalistic nation. The story shows how history shapes people’s lives and their politics.
To learn more or purchase tickets to the gala, visit the Ridenhour Prizes website.
About Type Media Center
Type Media Center is a non-profit home for independent journalists and truth-tellers at all stages of their careers. Our mission is to produce high-impact journalism and literary nonfiction that addresses injustice and inequality, catalyzes change, informs and uplifts social movements, while transforming and diversifying the fields of journalism and publishing.