Washington, DC– The National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA) announced the winners of its two annual scholarship awards.
Both scholarships – worth $3,000 each – are awarded each year to deserving students who are dedicated to furthering NLGJA’s mission of fostering fair and accurate coverage of LGBT issues. “Recognizing and encouraging the next generation of LGBT journalists is one of the most important things NLGJA does as an organization.” said Michael Triplett, NLGJA President, “The scholarship winners demonstrate that our profession can be vital and important, while also representing the diverse communities we cover.”
The 2012 award recipient of the Leroy F. Aarons Scholarship is Christopher Carbone. Carbone graduated from Rutgers University in 2000 and dove right into journalism with his early work published in the New York Press and The New York Blade. Carbone will attend Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism in the fall.
The third annual recipient of the Kay Longcope Scholarship Award is John-Carlos Estrada. Estrada graduated from The George Washington University in 2009 with a degree in International Affairs focused on Latin America. He will attend Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism in the fall.
The Leroy F. Aarons Scholarship was established in 2006 through a gift by CNN. Named in memory of Leroy F. Aarons, founder of NLGJA and a founding member of the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, the Leroy F. Aarons Scholarship was established to support the education of a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender student pursuing a journalism career.
The Kay Longcope Scholarship Award seeks to further the role of diversity in the education of our next generation of newsroom leaders by providing tuition assistance to a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender student of color who plans a career in journalism. Longcope was co-founder of The Texas Triangle, a statewide newsweekly focused on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues, and is generally regarded as the first out reporter at the Boston Globe. The pioneering Longcope started writing for the Globe in 1970 and was there for more than 20 years, including a tenure as the paper’s religion editor.
The scholarship funds are administered through a partnership between NLGJA and The Delaware Valley Legacy Fund, a donor-advised fund of the Philadelphia Foundation that works to advance philanthropy through endowment building, fundraising, community outreach and education within the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.