Vanguard Award Goes to Brooklyn College Junior Laura Albanese

Laura Albanese accepts the Vanguard Award from Vanguard veteran Mitchel Levitas of the New York Times.

Laura Albenese, former editor of the Brooklyn College student newspaper Kingsman, has received the 2006 Vanguard Award. The annual $500 award is bestowed by an alumni group from the student newspaper Vanguard, which was shut down in 1950 by Brooklyn College President Harry Gideonse because the editorial staff had declined to show their faculty adviser articles and editorials before they were printed. This celebrated case of censorship marked a low point in student journalism. More than fifty years later, the veterans of Vanguard have built successful careers in print and broadcast journalism and are active supporters of the Brooklyn College program in journalism.

Albanese won the award for her work as editor of Kingsman, and specifically for her strong defense of a rival student newspaper, The Excelsior, when members of the Brooklyn College student government attempted to shut it down.

"I'd like to thank the members of the Vanguard committee and the past members of Vanguard for this lovely honor." Albanese told more than thirty veterans of Vanguard who had returned to Brooklyn College for a gala reunion on April 28. "I used to mumble that being editor-in-chief of Kingsman was a thankless job and clearly I've been proven wrong. I learned many things during my tenure there. I learned about the practical: how to get things done by deadline, how to have a thick skin, and how to deal with putting out a paper week in and week out. But I also learned that the business I was entering was one centered around uncomfortable truths—reporting things that people needed to hear but possibly didn't want to hear. And that's really where my amazing staff took its cue from Vanguard. They established a gold standard toward which we strove—not being afraid to ask difficult questions when they needed to be asked."