Lauterer honored with Roots Journalism Award at AEJMC 2013

COMJIG founder Jock Lauterer, right, receives the Roots Journalism Award from outgoing head of COMJIG John Hatcher.

Jock Lauterer, a senior lecturer at the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media and director of the Carolina Community Media Project, was honored for his commitment to community journalism by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication’s Community Journalism Interest Group (COMJIG) at the annual AEJMC conference in August 2013 in Washington, D.C.

COMJIG officers presented Lauterer with the Roots Journalism Award to recognize and thank him for launching the group and for his commitment to the study and practice of community journalism. Lauterer, along with a group of community journalism colleagues, launched the interest group during the annual conference in 2004 in Toronto.

The award name comes from Lauterer’s forward to Bill Reader and John A. Hatcher’s 2012 book “Foundations of Community Journalism” in which Lauterer wrote:

“Lately I have begun to think of community journalism under a slightly different concept — that of ‘roots journalism.’ Like roots music, roots journalism reflects the indigenous culture through storytelling.

When the great bassist Christian McBride was asked what guided his music, he replied that he tried to keep his repertoire 'rooted in the groove.' It is that commitment to 'rootedness' that has been community journalism’s credo from the start, and which has propelled community newspapers and many other community journalism efforts through ‘the Great Recession’ and beyond.”

The Community Journalism Interest Group is dedicated to advancing understanding of challenges and opportunities as journalism intersects with communities, physical or virtual.