The Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism is one of three 2018 Citizen Diplomat Award recipients announced March 4, 2019, by the Council for International Visitors to Iowa Cities, known as CIVIC.
Lyle Muller/IowaWatch
Martin Brusewitz, a Swedish freelance reporter based in Malmö, visited IowaWatch on May 7, 2014, in Iowa City. He was interested in what IowaWatch does and how it tries to support its work financially.
The center, which runs IowaWatch.org, is being cited for its work as a nonprofit organization. The center’s journalists meet with international journalists on U.S. visits that bring them to Iowa, to talk about journalism in Iowa and the United States.
The non-profit CIVIC is a community-based, member-driven organization established to create, support and sustain citizen diplomacy efforts in the Iowa City-Cedar Rapids area of Eastern Iowa. It hosts international visitors whose U.S. visits take them through Iowa.
“The award recognizes your meaningful engagement with international visitors,” CIVIC wrote in an email to IowaWatch with word of the award. “The CIVIC board is grateful for the dedication that you have shown to promote international cooperation and foster mutual understanding through professional exchanges.”
IowaWatch photo
Journalists from Kyrgyzstan meet with IowaWatch staffers Lyle Muller and Lauren Wade on Dec. 6, 2018, in Iowa City. The international journalists were interested in how the nonprofit IowaWatch works.
The other award recipients are Diamond V of Cedar Rapids, for business and industry, and Johnson County Supervisor Lisa Green-Douglass as an individual. All are to be recognized at CIVIC’s Fourth Annual Celebration of Citizen Diplomacy Dinner on Tuesday, April 16, from 6 to 9 p.m. at hotelVetro in Iowa City.
ABC news correspondent Lana Zak is to be the event’s keynote speaker. Tickets are available at http://iowacivic.org.