In These Times’ Kari Lydersen Wins 2011 Studs Terkel Community Media Award

CHICAGO (March 9, 2011) - In These Times is delighted to congratulate our writer and contributing editor Kari Lydersen on becoming a 2011 Studs Terkel Community Media Award Winner.

The annual Studs Terkel Media Awards from the Community Media Workshop honor outstanding media professionals for excellence in covering and reflecting Chicago’s diverse communities. Or as Studs, himself an In These Times contributor, put it: “news that’s bottom up rather than up, down.”

It’s fitting that Kari Lydersen should win an award bearing Studs’ name, since she is a twice-weekly contributor to the Working In These Times labor blog, named after one of Studs’ most famous books. Her stories from Chicago and beyond have detailed overzealous policing of a protest in central Illinois, opposition to a proposed new Wal-Mart in Chicago and Jimmy John’s workers struggling to unionize in Minneapolis.

Kari’s work is labor journalism in the broadest and truest sense: her most recent Working piece reports on the knock-on effects that Arizona’s draconian anti-immigrant legislation is having in other states.

“Kari Lydersen is an editor’s dream - she’s always on the move, full of good ideas and absolutely meticulous,” said In These Times Web/Associate Editor Jeremy Gantz, who edits Working In These Times. “Her focus on workers and their struggles - rather than politicians and other official sources - aligns perfectly with In These Times’ mission. We’re proud she has written for the magazine and its website throughout the last ten years.”

While Lydersen’s work is unique, she is only the latest in a long line of In These Times contributors who have received a Studs Terkel Award from the Community Media Workshop since its inception in 1994. That year, acclaimed labor journalist and longtime In These Times contributor David Moberg received the award. Other In These Times writers honored have included Achy Obejas (1996), Laura S. Washington (1999), Salim Muwakkil (2001), founding editor and publisher James Weinstein (2005) and Stephen Franklin (2007).

Moberg and Franklin also write for Working In These Times, widely considered one of the best, most comprehensive sources for reporting on the labor movement. “I frequently get feedback saying that there are no other labor news sources like this out there,” says Kari Lydersen about the blog.” People are glad they have this source to turn to for breaking news and insight on labor-related issues.”

In These Times was founded in 1976 by author and historian James Weinstein with the mission to “identify and clarify the struggles against corporate power now multiplying in American society.” The magazine has frequently scooped the mainstream media on environmental issues, such as our January 11, 1989 cover story, “The Endless Simmer,” which inaugurated a three-part series on global warming.

Kari Lydersen, an In These Times contributing editor, is a Chicago-based journalist whose work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, The Chicago Reader, The Chicago Reporter and The Progressive, among other publications. Her most recent book is Revolt on Goose Island.

For more information or to coordinate an interview or on-air appearance with Kari Lydersen, please contact please contact Joe Macaré, Communications Director, at (773) 772-0100 ext. 240 or joe@inthesetimes.com.