Fourth Estate Award

The Fourth Estate Award from the Tennessee Bar Association honors courageous reporting on justice and the law. Tennessee-based journalists who have shown exemplary courage in exercising First Amendment rights in the promotion of public understanding of the Rule of Law and how our legal system works or should work will be considered. Such a journalist could be from the world of newspapers, TV or radio, digital media, book publishing, podcasting or social media. Winners receive a $250 honorarium.

Previous Award Recipients

Nominations

Nominations for the 2025 award recipient will open in Spring 2025.

• Nominations Open: TBD
• Nominations Close: TBD

More About the Award

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, and 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 their First Amendment rights.

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, or 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 presentation of this award will be made in June at the annual meeting of the Tennessee Bar Association.

For more information, please contact TBA Executive Director Sheree Wright at swright@tnbar.org.