The National Press Club announced the winners of the first Pamela Tobey Award for Visual Storytelling, and SJMC’s Found in Translation was among the top projects cited by the judges. The judges highlighted Found in Translation for its design and storytelling. The student-created multimedia documentary competed against projects from professional national and international news organizations, including Reuters (winner) and ProPublica (runner-up).

Alan Kotok (BA, 1967), a member of SJMC's professional advisory board and chair of National Press Club's photography committee, says “The Tobey award judges reviewed 15 entries and highlighted Found in Translation for telling a complex story with multiple media and well-designed graphics. The project team certainly held its own against well-funded professional media organizations.”

Found in Translation is the first project from Iowa Stories and Lived Experiences (ISLE), a multimedia documentary workshop offered through the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. The 16-day inaugural workshop focused on exploring the cultural, economic, and political currents that shape the lives of African immigrants in Eastern Iowa.

The workshop was supported in part by Midwest Connections: Linking narrative-based research to understand the changing Heartland, an interdisciplinary scholars grant from the Office of the Vice President for Research at the University of Iowa.