Jodi Cobb wins Missouri Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism

This is the release from the University of Missouri site:

2012 Recipients of the Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism Announced

The 10 Winners Include Investigative Reporters, Advertising and Magazine Executives, Visual Journalists and Media Executives

Columbia, Mo. (July 11, 2012) — The 2012 winners of the Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalismwere announced today by the Missouri School of Journalism.

The award, considered one of journalism’s most prestigious, honors career-long outstanding service to journalism. Among the distinguished journalists, advertising and public relations practitioners, business leaders, institutions and media organizations that have received the medal are Tom Brokaw, Christiane Amanpour, Sir Winston Churchill, Gloria Steinem, Deborah Howell and Gordon Parks.

The awards will be given during an evening banquet on Monday, Oct. 15, on the campus of the University of Missouri. Those to be honored are:

• Umar Cheema: investigative reporter for the Pakistani newspaper The News.
• Jodi Cobb: international photographer and author.
• Mona Eltahawy: columnist and international speaker on Arab and Muslim issues.
• John Ferrugia: investigative journalist and news anchor at KMGH-TV in Denver.
• Hu Shuli: editor-in-chief of Caixin Media and Caixin Magazine, and dean of the School of Communication and Design at Sun Yat-sen University.
• Jeff Leen: assistant managing editor in charge of The Washington Post‘s Investigative Unit.
• Adam Moss: editor-in-chief of New York magazine.
• The New York Times Graphics Department: a group of visual journalists who explain, illustrate and conceptualize the news.
• Fred Papert: international advertising executive and New York City community developer.
• Ken Paulson: president and chief executive officer of the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University and in Washington, D.C.

Jodi Cobb, has spent three decades as a staff photographer withNational Geographic – one of only four women to have held that position in the magazine’s 120-year history. She is best known for lifting the curtain on worlds closed to outsiders, celebrating the best of the human spirit and spotlighting some of its worst abuses. Cobb has worked in more than 65 countries on a broad body of work that includes more than 40 articles, books and other projects that include global advertising campaigns.

 She was one of the first photographers to travel across China after it was reopened to the West and to photograph the hidden lives of Saudi Arabian women. Her book, “Geisha: The Life, the Voices, the Art” (Knopf, 1995) was the first to document the lives and rituals of Japan’s geishas. It was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and won the American Society of Media PhotographersOutstanding Achievement Award in 1996.

In another first, Cobb gave the issue of people who are bought, sold and exploited for profit a human face in the National Geographic story “21st Century Slaves,” which got more positive responses than any story in its history until then.

Cobb’s photographs have been widely published and exhibited worldwide, and she has been repeatedly honored by theNational Press Photographers Association Pictures of the Year and World Press awards. Cobb was the first woman to be named White House Photographer of the year. She was named a “Nikon Legend” and was a U.S. Presidential Delegate to the Nagano Olympics.

In addition to her master’s and bachelor’s degrees from the Missouri School of Journalism, Cobb received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from the Corcoran College of Art and Design.