Tag Archives | Cleary Prize

The UNC Center for Media Law and Policy is thrilled to announce the winners of the third annual James R. Cleary Prize for the best student published scholarly articles on media law and policy.

This year’s first place winner is Scott Memmel, a 2020 graduate of the University of Minnesota Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication, for his article, “Crossing Constitutional Boundaries: Searches and Seizures of Electronic Devices at U.S. Borders,” which was published in Communications Law and Policy.  Memmel’s article examines searches and seizures of electronic devices at U.S. borders and “seeks to chart the legal landscape by (1) providing key background information, (2) discussing the First Amendment angle of warrantless searches of journalists’ devices, and (3) detailing the split among federal circuit and district courts regarding the Fourth Amendment question of whether border agents need reasonable suspicion to conduct forensic searches of electronic devices.”

The second place winner is Jeeyun (Sophia) Baik, a 2021 graduate of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Her article, “Data privacy and political distrust: corporate ‘pro liars,’ ‘gridlocked Congress,’ and the Twitter issue public around the US privacy legislation,” was published in Information, Communication & Society. Baik’s article “explores how emerging US data privacy regulations are discussed at state and federal levels, examining Twitter discourse around Senate public hearings on data privacy and public forums on the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).”

Memmel will receive a $1,000 cash award and Baik will receive $500.

Scott Memmel

Scott Memmel, M.A., Ph.D. is a postdoctoral associate at the University of Minnesota Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication (HSJMC), where he earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree in 2020 and his Master of Arts degree in 2017.

Memmel’s research, which focuses on media law, history, and ethics, has appeared in several respected publications, including Communication Law & Policy. His dissertation and upcoming book to be published by the University of Missouri Press focus on the history and law of the press-police relationship in the United States. Memmel’s dissertation, “Pressing the Police and Policing the Press: The History and Law of the Relationship Between the News Media and Law Enforcement in the United States,” was awarded the 2021 Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) Nafziger-White-Salwen Dissertation Award and the 2020 University of Minnesota Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication Ralph D. Casey Dissertation Research Award. Memmel has worked for several years at the Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and Law, where he previously served as editor of the Silha Bulletin, a thrice-yearly publication focusing on current events related to media law and ethics.

Memmel also teaches several courses at the University of Minnesota, including mass communication law and media ethics. Previously, he held several roles at WSUM 91.7 FM while completing his Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Wisconsin.

Jeeyun (Sophia) Baik

Jeeyun (Sophia) Baik is an incoming postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity at UC Berkeley School of Information. She earned her doctoral degree from the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California. Her research explores socio-political implications of media/technology law and policy for those at the margins of society. She particularly examines various stakeholders’ engagement in the governance of media and information technology, covering the issues of privacy/surveillance, content moderation, and mis/disinformation.

Baik’s dissertation closely investigated the “civil right” of data privacy as a regulatory alternative to address discrimination and structural inequities being reinforced in the digital era. Mapping civil society perspectives onto the data-driven political economy and emerging US privacy laws (e.g., California Consumer Privacy Act), she articulated the limitations of traditional privacy regulations and suggested new ways to collectively envision a more just framework.

Baik’s research has been published in Information, Communication & Society, Telematics & Informatics, International Journal of Communication, and Mass Media & Society. Baik also holds a BA in International Relations from Seoul National University in South Korea, and a master’s in Public Diplomacy from the University of Southern California. She produced broadcasting news prior to the doctoral program.

You can read more about the Cleary Prize competition here. Please check the Center’s blog for an announcement of next year’s deadline to apply.

Congratulations to the winners!

The UNC Center for Media Law and Policy is now accepting submissions for the James R. Cleary Prize for student media law and policy research published in 2020. The annual award competition, which highlights the best student-authored scholarly articles on media law and policy related topics, honors the legacy of James R. Cleary, an attorney who practiced for 56 years in Huntsville, Ala.  He was particularly interested in the communications field and media law issues.  Cleary’s daughter, Johanna Cleary, is a 2004 Ph.D. graduate of the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media.

You can read about last year’s winners, Elias Wright, from Fordham University School of Law; Sarah Koslov, from Georgetown Law; and David Fischer, from Columbia Law School, here.

The prize competition is open to all college and university students. Up to three winners will be selected, with a first prize of $1,000, a second prize of $500, and a third prize of $250. The prizes will be awarded to the authors of published papers that most creatively and convincingly propose solutions to significant problems in the field of media law and policy, including First Amendment speech and press issues. All methodologies are welcome.

The deadline for submission is April 15, 2021.

Rules

1. The author of the submitted publication must have been enrolled in a graduate or undergraduate degree-granting program in the United States at the time the article was accepted for publication. This includes, but is not limited to, students enrolled in M.A. and Ph.D. programs, law school (including J.D., LL.M., and J.S.D. candidates), and other professional schools (including M.B.A. candidates).
2. The submitted paper must have been published in a law review or peer-reviewed journal during the 2020 calendar year.
3. Each student may submit only one entry.
4. Jointly authored papers are eligible, provided all authors meet the eligibility requirements for the competition. If a winning paper has more than one author, the prize will be split equally among the co-authors. No work with a faculty co-author will be considered.
5. Each entry must be the original work of the listed author(s). The author(s) must perform all of the key tasks of identifying the topic, researching it, analyzing it, formulating positions and arguments, and writing and revising the paper.
6. Papers will be evaluated based on a number of factors, including thoroughness of research and analysis, relevance to the competition topic, relevance to current legal and/ or public policy debates, originality of thought, and clarity of expression.
7. The prize will be monetary. Winners will be required to submit a completed W-9, affidavit of eligibility, tax acknowledgment and liability release for tax purposes as a condition of receiving the cash prize.
8. In the unlikely event that entries are of insufficient quality to merit an award, the Center for Media Law and Policy reserves the right not to award some or all of the prizes.

Submission Process

• All entries must be received by 11:59 p.m. EST on April 15, 2021.
• Entries must be sent via email to medialaw[at]unc.edu with the following in the subject line: “James R. Cleary Prize Submission: [Name of Author]”
• Papers should be submitted in Portable Document Format (.pdf).
• Entries MUST include a signed cover sheet that may be downloaded from the Center for Media Law Policy’s website here.

A review committee comprised of faculty and affiliates from the UNC Center for Media Law and Policy will review the submissions and determine the winning paper(s). The decisions of the committee are final. Winners will be notified and final results will appear on the Center’s website in late spring. Due to the large number of expected entries, the Center cannot contact all non-winning entrants.

For more information, please visit our Cleary Competition page.

Elias Wright

The UNC Center for Media Law and Policy is thrilled to announce the winners of the second annual James R. Cleary Prize for students who wrote the best published scholarly articles on media law and policy related topics in 2019.

This year’s first place winner is Elias Wright, a 2020 graduate of Fordham University School of Law, for his article, “The Future of Facial Recognition Is Not Fully Known: Developing Privacy and Security Regulatory Mechanisms for Facial Recognition in the Retail Sector,” which was published in the Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal. The second place winner is Sarah Koslov, a 2020 graduate of Georgetown Law School. Her article, “Incitement and the Geopolitical Influence of Facebook Content Moderation,” was published in the Georgetown Law Technology Review. The third place winner is David A. Fischer, a 2020 graduate of Columbia Law School, for his article, “Dron’t Stop Me Now: Prioritizing Drone Journalism in Commercial Drone Regulation,” which was published in the Columbia Journal of Law and the Arts. Wright will receive $1000;  Koslov will receive $500; and Fischer will receive $250.

Elias Wright is currently working as a law clerk at Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP while applying for admission to the New York Bar. His research focuses on the intersection of communications technology, law, and culture, and he is interested in how legal institutions negotiate and are transformed by sociotechnical processes.

While at Fordham, Wright served as a Project Fellow for the Center on Law and Information Policy and studied Information Law with Professor Olivier Sylvain, who was his advisor on the article. Wright was a member of the Fordham Law Review and served as a judicial intern for United States Magistrate Judge Leda Dunn Wettre of the District of New Jersey. He grew up in Montclair, New Jersey, and completed his undergraduate degree in Art History and Religion at Oberlin College in 2014.

Sarah Koslov

At Georgetown Law, Sarah Koslov was a member of the inaugural cohort of the Technology Law Scholars program. She served as the Senior Solicitations Editor for the Georgetown Law Technology Review and was a Public Interest Fellow achieving Special Pro Bono Pledge Recognition. Koslov’s interest in public policy led her to internships with the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, Senate Committee on Finance, and California Office of the Attorney General. She was also a Research Assistant for the Institute for Technology Law & Policy, where she focused on algorithmic fairness and disability rights.

Koslov graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree from the University of South Carolina in 2014. Prior to law school, she worked as a policy analyst for a research center in Washington, D.C., focusing on state Medicaid programs and public health insurance policy.

David A. Fischer

David A. Fischer was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and the Executive Notes Editor of Volume 43 of the Columbia Journal of Law & the Arts.  While attending Columbia Law School, Fischer served as a research assistant for Professor Suzanne B. Goldberg and volunteered to teach Constitutional Law to high school students as a part of Columbia’s High School Law Institute.

During law school, Fischer was a summer associate with Latham & Watkins in New York, interned for the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of New York in the Criminal Division’s National Security and Cybercrime Section, and for the Hon. Eric N. Vitaliano of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

Prior to attending law school, Fischer worked in marketing for Viacom Media Networks. He attended Cornell University, where he graduated cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in English. He resides in New York City.

You can read more about the Cleary Prize competition here. Please check the Center’s blog for an announcement of next year’s deadline to apply.

Congratulations to the winners!

This year marks the second year of the UNC Center for Media Law and Policy’s James R. Cleary Student Paper Competition. Cash prizes are awarded to the student authors of published papers that most creatively and convincingly propose solutions to significant problems in the field of media law and policy, including First Amendment speech and press issues.

The competition was made possible by James Cleary’s daughter, Dr. Johanna Cleary, a Ph.D. graduate of the UNC Hussman School of Journalism Media and a former Park Fellow. Kriste Patrow, a UNC Ph.D. candidate in the School, asked Dr. Cleary about her Dad and his legacy.

Q: So, can you start by telling me a little bit about the work your father did?

Cleary: Well, my Dad was in a general practice most of his life, but he always had a great interest in and passion for the media. In fact, the way he paid his way through his undergraduate degree and a lot of his law school expenses was by working in radio.

Dad, as a teenager, began working as a radio announcer in the 1940s. He worked at some smaller stations in Alabama and then a featured spot on one of the major stations in Birmingham, Alabama. His radio show, at the time he was doing it, was actually the number-one rated program in the country. He was part of a group that put the first television station on the air in Huntsville, Alabama, which was very much a growing city at the time. And he also was part of a partnership that put together the second newspaper in Huntsville.

So, he had this great love for media and a great interest in it. He also understood the importance of law to our society, and so he ultimately went on to law school and was a practicing attorney for about 56 years.

Q: What kind of work did he do as an attorney?

Cleary: Well, because my Dad was in a general practice, his media specific work was geographically determined.  Basically he was admitted to the group that could practice before the Federal Communications Commission. He did a lot of the legal work in terms of setting up the ownership for those stations, which is a pretty complicated process. So, from a very hands-on standpoint he was very committed to the importance of the media, and I think philosophically, the importance of the media to democracy. I think Dad really did believe in the Fourth Estate — that there is an important role in the press to play in preserving a democracy for us.

Q: So, he believed in the media’s role as a watchdog on government?

Cleary: The important thing that my father really believed in was an informed and educated population – the idea Aristotle had that informed people can make good decisions for themselves. That being informed just doesn’t happen by magic. There is a lot of work that goes into that: Work both on the part of the media and the part of the public, the consuming public.

Q: Can you tell me a bit about what inspired you to donate to the UNC Center for Media Law and Policy in particular?

Cleary: I am a product of the doctoral program there, and I was very fortunate to receive one of the Park Fellowships. So, I was very grateful to the School and to the Park family for having that opportunity. I could have gone to any number of different initiatives, but I knew the national reputation of the media law program there. I knew the individuals involved with the Center’s leadership there and certainly have the highest of opinions of them.

The Center was kind of getting up and running really at the time that my Dad visited UNC when I graduated. So, he had an idea of the quality of the program there. I think he highly approved of what was being done there and where they were going.

The importance of the press to our democracy just can’t be overstated and neither can the role that media law plays in making sure that stays the case. I mean, this isn’t just something that happens by luck and chance.

So, it was a collection of a lot of things. It just seemed to be the perfect match. I’m very pleased that they had the idea of creating this award in honor of my father. That’s very meaningful.

Q: What are your hopes for the Cleary Award moving forward?

Cleary:  That’s a good question. I think people are looking toward the emerging scholars to say “Where do we go? What are the things we need to know? What are the rules that we need to come up with? Where do we leave it alone? Where do we need to roll up our sleeves and get involved?” This time, more so than any I remember, students have the opportunity to shape the future. My hope for the award is that it will recognize the impact that student scholars are already having and encourage the potential they have to shape, certainly the media field, but really our democracy to a large extent.

The UNC Center for Media Law and Policy is now accepting submissions for the James R. Cleary Prize.  The annual award competition, which highlights the best student-authored scholarly articles on media law and policy related topics, honors the legacy of James R. Cleary, an attorney who practiced for 56 years in Huntsville, Ala.  He was particularly interested in the communications field and media law issues.  Cleary’s daughter, Johanna Cleary, is a 2004 Ph.D. graduate of the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media.

You can read about last year’s winners, Austin Vining, a joint JD/Ph.D. student at the University of Florida Levin College of Law and College of Journalism and Communications, and Alexandra Baruch Bachman, from the University of North Carolina School of Law, here.

The prize competition is open to all college and university students. Up to three winners will be selected, with a first prize of $1,000, a second prize of $500, and a third prize of $250. The prizes will be awarded to the authors of published papers that most creatively and convincingly propose solutions to significant problems in the field of media law and policy, including First Amendment speech and press issues. All methodologies are welcome.

The new deadline for submission is April 15, 2020.

Rules

1. The author of the submitted publication must have been enrolled in a graduate or undergraduate degree-granting program in the United States at the time the article was accepted for publication. This includes, but is not limited to, students enrolled in M.A. and Ph.D. programs, law school (including J.D., LL.M., and J.S.D. candidates), and other professional schools (including M.B.A. candidates).
2. The submitted paper must have been published in a law review or peer-reviewed journal during the 2019 calendar year.
3. Each student may submit only one entry.
4. Jointly authored papers are eligible, provided all authors meet the eligibility requirements for the competition. If a winning paper has more than one author, the prize will be split equally among the co-authors. No work with a faculty co-author will be considered.
5. Each entry must be the original work of the listed author(s). The author(s) must perform all of the key tasks of identifying the topic, researching it, analyzing it, formulating positions and arguments, and writing and revising the paper.
6. Papers will be evaluated based on a number of factors, including thoroughness of research and analysis, relevance to the competition topic, relevance to current legal and/ or public policy debates, originality of thought, and clarity of expression.
7. The prize will be monetary. Winners will be required to submit a completed W-9, affidavit of eligibility, tax acknowledgment and liability release for tax purposes as a condition of receiving the cash prize.
8. In the unlikely event that entries are of insufficient quality to merit an award, the Center for Media Law and Policy reserves the right not to award some or all of the prizes.

Submission Process

• All entries must be received by 11:59 p.m. EST on March 15, 2020.
• Entries must be sent via email to medialaw[at]unc.edu with the following in the subject line: “James R. Cleary Prize Submission: [Name of Author]”
• Papers should be submitted in Portable Document Format (.pdf).
• Entries MUST include a signed cover sheet that may be downloaded from the Center for Media Law Policy’s website here.

A review committee comprised of faculty and affiliates from the UNC Center for Media Law and Policy will review the submissions and determine the winning paper(s). The decisions of the committee are final. Winners will be notified and final results will appear on the Center’s website in late spring. Due to the large number of expected entries, the Center cannot contact all non-winning entrants.

For more information, please visit our Cleary Competition page. Submit your research to win this award!