For Marilyn Serafini, one of the most important political story topics of the past year was health care reform.

Serafini, an award-winning journalist, delivered the inaugural Toner Lecture on American Politics and Political Journalism on Monday in the Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium. The lecture also recognized the first winner of the Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting: Craig Harris, a senior reporter for the Arizona Republic in Phoenix.

Covering health care under President Barack Obama was not Serafini’s first run-in with the system, as she covered the health care debate under former President Bill Clinton as well. During the lecture, she spoke about the performance of the media in covering the health care debate.

‘Reforming our health care system is one of the most contentious political stories of the last few years,’ Serafini said.

The lecture honors Robin Toner, a Syracuse University alumna who graduated with a dual degree in political science and journalism. She was the first woman to be a national political correspondent for The New York Times and spent 25 years working there, according to the Toner Program website. Toner died in December 2008 at age 54.

The lecture and award celebrate and encourage the kind of political reporting Toner did in her career, said Charlotte Grimes, Knight Chair in Political Reporting and administrator of the new program, in an email.

The Toner Program will bring some of the nation’s top political reporters to SU to talk about challenges in American politics and covering politics, Grimes said.

Toner’s husband, Peter Gosselin, and her former classmates, especially John Chapple, chair of the SU Board of Trustees, want to create a program in her honor, Grimes said. She said they are working with SU to fundraise a $1 million endowment to implement the program permanently.

‘One of Robin Toner’s coverage specialties was reporting on the politics and policies of health care,’ Grimes said. ‘That’s also Serafini’s specialty.’

Serafini is the first Robin Toner Distinguished Fellow for the Kaiser Family Foundation, a position that was newly created by the foundation, one of the nation’s top research organizations on health care issues, Grimes said.

David Rubin, former dean and a current professor of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, introduced Serafini as a health care and welfare reporter for the National Journal.

Rubin brought up the example of a comment made by Sarah Palin, who referred to Obama and his bureaucrats as the ‘death panel’ during the health care debate.

Serafini stressed the importance of staying away from issues that are solely political-party differences when trying to focus on covering policies.

‘It’s the responsibility of journalists to write about what we should write about, not necessarily what is being said,’ Serafini said.

The second part of the lecture brought Harris, winner of the Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting, and the honorable mentions for the Toner Prize, Sebastian Jones and Marcus Stern, up to the stage to answer questions from the audience. Ryan Lizza also received an honorable mention for the prize, but was not able to attend the event.

Harris won the award and the $5,000 prize for his eight-part series on Arizona’s expensive public pension plans. His article series investigated the Arizona pension system and called for Arizona lawmakers to reform and correct the abuse within the organization.

The competition drew 103 entries from across the country from news organizations such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, PBS and NPR, according to the press release for the Toner Prize. The winner and honorable mentions were decided by five veteran journalists.

Harris, Jones and Stern discussed their issue with gaining access to information. Harris had to countersue the Arizona retirement system to give him information after the company denied his public records request.

Stern and Jones agreed it is especially difficult to get information from politicians.

‘Politicians are famous for ignoring the question they’re asked and talking about what they want to talk about,’ Stern said.

At the end of the ceremony, Gosselin, Toner’s husband, said he and his children hope someday the Toner Prize will become like a Pulitzer Prize for political reporters.

‘If the program advances the experiment, we will fulfill the public purpose of the program,’ Gosselin said, ‘as well as reminding my children that their mother was someone to be reckoned with and giving them the opportunity to represent Robin over and over again.’

kacrisci@syr.edu

 

Published on March 28, 2011 at 12:00 pm