For Immediate Release: October 7, 2014
Media Contact: Bach Polakowski
202-588-9888 or bach@nlgja.org
Washington, D.C. — The Leroy F. Aarons Scholarship and Kay Longcope Scholarship are awarded each year to deserving students who are dedicated to furthering NLGJA’s mission of fostering fair and accurate coverage of LGBT issues.
The 2014 recipient of the Leroy F. Aarons Scholarship is Matthew Bloom. Bloom attends the Indiana University School of Journalism. He participated in the 2014 Connect Student Journalism Project. Read his work at http://wp.me/p4XpbE-4Q.
The fifth annual recipient of the Kay Longcope Scholarship Award is Linda Sankat. Sankat attends Meredith College in North Carolina.
The Leroy F. Aarons Scholarship was established in 2006 through a gift from 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 scholarship was established to support the education of a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender student pursuing a journalism career.
The Kay Longcope Scholarship seeks to further the role of diversity in the education of our next generation of newsroom leaders by providing tuition assistance to a LGBT student of color who plans a career in journalism. Longcope was co-founder of The Texas Triangle, a statewide newsweekly focused on LGBT issues. She is regarded as the first out reporter at The Boston Globe, where she started in 1970 as a writer and was a journalist for more than 20 years, including serving 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.
Bloom and Sankat will be recognized at NLGJA’s 2015 Headlines & Headliners national benefit in March in New York.
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About the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association
NLGJA is an organization of journalists, media professionals, educators and students working from within the news industry to foster fair and accurate coverage of LGBT issues. NLGJA opposes all forms of workplace bias and provides professional development to its members. For more information on the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, visit the NLGJA website at https://www.nlgja.org.