CCF Announces USA Today as 2020 Award Recipient for Outstanding Media Coverage of Family Issues

Council on Contemporary Families Honors USA Today for Outstanding Media Coverage of Family Issues (2020)

Austin, TX – The Council on Contemporary Families (CCF) is pleased to present its Fourteenth Annual Media Awards at 5:15pm on February 7, 2020 at the AT&T Conference Center and Hotel, Austin, TX, at the CCF annual conference, “Raising Children in the 21^st Century.”

The CCF media awards honor outstanding journalism that contributes to the public understanding of contemporary family issues. Honorees are invited to speak for five minutes on emerging issues affecting American families and how CCF members and supporters can help the media cover these stories effectively.

The 2020 Award for Outstanding Media Coverage of Family Issues goes to USA Today for their piece, “America’s parents want paid family leave and affordable child care. Why can’t they get it?.” Written by Alia E. Dastagir, Charisse Jones, Courtney Crowder, and Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy, the article deftly investigates the toll of childcare costs on families. This article humanizes the issue and looks at the myriad of ways childcare costs impact parents, while also considering the existing barriers to paid leave and childcare costs relief. Visual aids, video clips, and interviews with a variety of people involved in decision-making, this article nicely details the concerns and realities of the high cost of childcare.

About the CCF Media Awards: The CCF media awards were established in 2002 as part of the Council’s commitment to enhancing the public understanding of trends in American family life. “All too often, changes in U.S. family patterns are painted in stark, better-or-worse terms that ignore the nuanced and complex realities of family life today. The Awards Committee looks for articles that put individual family issues in larger social context. This kind of coverage offers the public a balanced picture of the trade-offs, strengths and weaknesses in many different family arrangements and structures,” explained Stephanie Coontz, CCF’s Director of Research and Public Education. The CCF media awards committee will call for nominations for the 2022 awards in the fall of 2021. Please visit www.contemporaryfamilies.org for information.

The Council on Contemporary Families’ 20^th Biennial Conference: “Raising Children in the 21^st Century” convenes scholars, practitioners, and members of the media to discuss pressing issues confronting U.S. families in a world that is becoming increasingly complex.  Few issues are in greater need of discussion, debate, and action than raising children in an era of rapid technological change, political, and environmental change, with all of the conflict, uncertainty, and opportunity that comes with such change. The conference will be held at the AT&T Conference Center and Hotel in Austin, TX on February 7^th 2020.

CCF and how CCF assists journalists: The Council on Contemporary Families is a non-profit, non-partisan organization of family researchers, mental health and social practitioners, and clinicians dedicated to providing the press and public with the latest research and best practice findings about American families. It was founded in 1996 and is based at the University of Texas at Austin.

For more information, or to receive future fact sheets and briefing papers from the Council, contact Stephanie Coontz, Director of Research and Public Education of CCF and Professor of History and Family Studies at the Evergreen State College, at coontzs@msn.com; 360-352-8117.