The fourth annual Izzy Award was presented April 10, 2012, to independent journalist Sharif Abdel Kouddous (Democracy Now correspondent, Nation Institute fellow) and to the Center for Media and Democracy, led by Lisa Graves. The award honored their work in 2011, during which Kouddous reported from Egypt on the Tahrir Square uprising and “unfinished revolution,” and CMD exposed the secretive yet powerful corporate-front ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council.
Previous Izzy Winner Amy Goodman took part in the ceremony, presenting the award to Sharif – who flew in to the event with his father from his current home in Cairo. Lisa Graves announced that major corporations had withdrawn from ALEC in the previous days (largely as a result of the controversy generated by CMD’s “ALEC Exposed”). The ceremony took place in Ithaca College’s Emerson Suites.
- FreeSpeechTV aired a one-hour show featuring the fourth Izzy Awards
- Official program for the Izzy ceremony
- See photos from the ceremony
- Izzy winner Lisa Graves on Democracy Now! days after ceremony.