Former IRW interns finalists for Livingston Award

Congratulations to former IRW interns who were named finalists for the 2026 Livingston Awards for Young Journalists, which were established in 1981 to recognize outstanding reporting and bolster the careers of journalists under the age of 35. For more than four decades, the Livingston Awards have identified exceptional young journalists and the next generation of newsroom leaders.

This year’s finalists included: Jana Cholakovska of NJ Advance Media, Savanna Strott of Public Health Watch, and Sammy Sussman of The New York Times and New York Focus. Congratulations, too, to Strott’s colleagues at PHW, who also were nominated: David Leffler and Salina Arredondo. Jana wrote “Playing With Fire,” about aging fire equipment that has become difficult to afford or replace — potentially putting lives in jeopardy. The PHW team created the investigative podcast “Fumed,” based on years of reporting on Channelview, an unincorporated community outside Houston, in the heart of the nation’s petrochemical industry. And Sussman wrote a series about relaxed discipline in police departments across New York State, drawing on more than 10,000 documents.