Press Releases

Press Releases

Nominations Now Open for TBA's Fourth Estate Award

Posted by: Brooke Leeton & Stacey Shrader Joslin on Mar 28, 2024

Nashville, March, 28, 2024 — The Tennessee Bar Association has opened the nomination period for the Fourth Estate Award: Honoring Courageous Reporting on Justice and the Law. This year’s prize includes a $250 honorarium for the winner.

The TBA strongly supports freedom of expression under the First Amendment, as exercised by lawyers on behalf of their clients and by journalists on behalf of the public. It particularly wants to recognize and encourage journalists who promote public understanding of the rule of law and our system of justice through vigorous exercise of First Amendment rights.

Prior winners include the WSMV News 4 I-Team, Steven Hale of the Nashville Scene, the Bristol Herald Courier, and Marc Perrusquia’s work published in the Daily Memphian and on the website of the Institute for Public Service Reporting, the Kingsport Times News, and two reporters with the Elk Valley Times. All promoted a better understanding of the legal system in Tennessee with fact-based and courageous reporting. Read more about past recipients here.

Nominees must be Tennessee-based journalists who have shown exemplary courage in exercising First Amendment rights in the promotion of public understanding of how the law and our legal system works and how it should work as demonstrated by a story or series of related stories published in 2023.

Nominees may be individuals or teams of journalists who worked on the published stories. Journalists may also self-nominate. The nominees may have published their story or stories online, in a newspaper or magazine, in a book, on a podcast, or on television or radio.

The nomination form for work published in 2023 is now available.

The presentation of this award will be made in June at the annual meeting of the Tennessee Bar Association in Memphis. The deadline for entry is April 25. Attorneys who have relationships with reporters or observed a particularly compelling piece of journalism in 2023 are encouraged to submit a nomination.

The TBA was founded in 1881. Its membership represents the entire spectrum of the legal profession in Tennessee and beyond. The TBA is open to all licensed attorneys in good standing, and it is dedicated to enhancing fellowship and professionalism among the members of Tennessee’s legal community.