NOMINATIONS        PAST RECIPIENTS

The Mitchell V. Charnley Award was established in 1968.  It is given each year to an individual working, or with roots, in the six-state Midwest Broadcast Journalists Association region, who has made outstanding contributions to the field of broadcast journalism.

Mitch Charnley was a teacher, an editor, a writer, a great friend, a quick wit, and a legend.  He was one of the founders of MBJA’s predecessor organization, the Northwest Broadcast News Association and the model on which the Charnley Award is based.

Charnley was born in Goshen, Indiana on April 9, 1898.  He received his undergraduate degree from Williams College in 1919 and a Master’s degree from the University of Washington in 1921.    He was a reporter for the Honolulu Star Bulletin, worked on the rewrite desk of the Detroit News and as an editor of American Boy Magazine and Short Stories Magazine.  He was a free-lance writer in Europe and Algeria.  He taught at Iowa State College before joining the University of Minnesota’s school of journalism in 1934.  He stayed there three decades, retiring in June of 1966.

Charnley was often published in Journalism Quarterly, Quill, Columbia Journalism Review, and the Saturday Review of Literature.  He wrote three textbooks:  Reporting, News by Radio and Magazine Writing and Editing.  The four editions of his reporting textbook have been the primary “how-to” guides for generations of aspiring journalists.  In the preface of the fourth edition, he wrote, “Reporting is a craft, and it is an art.  And it is much more.  It is a principal instrument for building and holding firm the kind of society a democratic people want.”

Charnley “kept current” on the practice of journalism and broadcasting by helping found WCCO Radio’s first full-scale newsroom in 1943 and serving in the KSTP newsroom in 1952.  He received numerous journalism awards, including the 1963 Distinguished Achievement Award of the Radio Television News Directors Association and Sigma Delta Chi’s Distinguished Teaching in Journalism Award.

Mitch Charnley passed away on February 16, 1991 at the age of 92.

Among his many students was Eric Sevareid, for whom our annual awards for excellence in journalism are named.

To nominate someone to receive the Mitchell V. Charnley Award, please fill out the Charnley nomination form and send it to the Association for review.

Previous winners of the Mitchell V. Charnley Award include: