We’ve been named a finalist in two categories: Columns and Newsletters and Health and Wellness.
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We’ve been named a finalist in two categories: Columns and Newsletters and Health and Wellness.
May 13, 2025
Nick Tilsen during the Mount Rushmore Land Back Protest. (Photo credit: Willi White)
We’re excited to report that we have been nominated for James Beard Journalism Awards in two categories:
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We’re also celebrating the nomination of “Black Earth,” a profile of a North Carolina farmer that we cross-posted from The Bitter Southerner, written by Civil Eats’ Associate Editor Christina Cooke.
Columns and Newsletters
We publish a Deep Dish every six weeks or so, crafting a mini-magazine of stories around a central theme. For our small staff, it’s an all-hands-on-deck effort in addition to our regular publishing cadence. We start with a brainstorm, which arises from topics that are clearly gathering force in our food system, with implications for all of us.
Civil Eats has been nominated for two 2025 James Beard Journalism Awards.
Once we’ve settled on a topic, and created a mesh of stories that amplify and resonate with one another, we assign reporters, research photos, and identify potential art. This intense work is deeply gratifying, allowing us to go deep on a topic, and we see newsletter open rates of 80 to 90 percent—far exceeding the industry average.
For “Indigenous Foodways,” we delved more deeply into a topic we cover year-round, and invited Civil Eats contributor Kate Nelson, an Alaska Native Tlingit tribal member, to guest-edit. Nelson also wrote a piece herself, about the connections between tribal food sovereignty and the Land Back movement.
Other stories touched on tribal issues in the endlessly delayed farm bill, Navajo water rights, a prized fish called the Clear Lake hitch, and an interview with ethnobotanist and food sovereignty activist Linda Black Elk. These stories, we felt, had much to teach us about Indigenous foodways and how to begin to decolonize our experiences with food and agriculture.
With “Revitalizing Home Cooking,” we enlisted a star-studded group of experts to help address many of our home cooking challenges, and in the process, help remind us that cooking can be both joyful and a meaningful way to support a good, fair, and just food system. Cookbook author Kim O’Donnel spoke to us about why cooking is the cornerstone of sustainability; we got tips on meal prep from cookbook author Nik Sharma; we went shopping with author and climate consultant Sophie Egan; we learned the best ways to preserve and store food from San Francisco’s Civic Kitchen and how to handle leftovers with writer Tamar Adler; and got inspired by some seriously ambitious dorm-room cooks.
We’re thrilled to be heading to Chicago this June for the award celebration, and to be among many other talented journalists from across the country.
We are especially glad that “Food on the Ballot” was recognized by the Beard Foundation, given the profound impact of the 2024 presidential election. The issue examined the candidates’ approaches to immigration, climate change, corporate farming, and food prices (we hosted a related member salon on the topic of inflation and groceries). We also scrutinized AcreTrader, a farm real-estate investment platform that counted then-vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance among its investors. That reporting remains among the top read stories on our site.
The elections issue was probably the longest we’ve ever published, and our members responded with enthusiastic open rates and click-throughs. Their engagement helped support our decision, this year, to launch the Civil Eats Food Policy Tracker, entirely focused on federal policy action in Washington, D.C.
We’ve also been nominated and won additional accolades for the Deep Dish from other organizations beyond the Beard Foundation. Last year, we won a 2024 Excellence in Newsletters, Single Newsletter from the Online News Association, and in 2020, we received the digital media award for best newsletter from the International Association of Culinary Professionals.
Moran’s sharply observed story took place as Florida banned local heat regulations for farmworkers, including a requirement that employers provide water, shade, and breaks for workers laboring in the hot sun. The piece covered the alternative protections offered by the Fair Food Program, from the state’s legendary Coalition of Immokalee Workers.
After the story was published, more coverage followed extolling the Fair Food Program as a solution to Florida’s heat protection ban, including at NPR, an NBC affiliate in Southwest Florida, USA Today, and the national Latino radio network Radio Bilingue. Moran also discussed the story on two radio programs: KALW Public Media and Food Sleuth Radio. A few months after the article was published, the Fair Food Program was awarded a $15 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, helping it expand to more farms.
Farmworkers clear out irrigation for an okra field near Coachella, California. (Photo credit: Mario Tama, Getty Images)
“There are models like the Fair Food Program that offer a way forward even under governments that are hostile to workers,” Moran said. “I’m honored by this nomination, and also hope it shines a light on this critical model for workers’ rights.”
For “Black Earth,” about North Carolina farmer Patrick Brown’s purchase of the plantation where his ancestors were enslaved, Cooke wove family history into a lyrical story of reclaiming land and community. “Over my multiple visits to Patrick’s farm over the course of a growing season, I came to appreciate the depth of his story, which stretches back generations, and understand why people I spoke with described him as a ‘north star’ and a ‘guiding light’—someone who is finding a better way and reaching back to bring others along,” she said.
This isn’t the first time Civil Eats has been nominated for or won a James Beard award. We were named Publication of the Year in 2014. Staff Reporter and Contributing Editor Lisa Held, Contributor Alice Driver, and Contributor Aaron Van Neste were nominated for a Beard award for excellence in investigative reporting for our 2023 series on Walmart and the Walton Family Foundation, Walanthropy. That same year, Contributor Virginia Gewin was nominated for a Beard award for excellence in health reporting on the Salton Sea.
In 2023, Cooke, former Senior Reporter Gosia Wozniacka, and Driver won a Beard Award for excellence in investigative reporting for our 2022 series on animal agriculture workers, Injured and Invisible.
We’re thrilled to be heading to Chicago this June for the award celebration, and to be among many other talented journalists from across the country. As always, we will be thinking of you, our readers—for whose support we are always grateful. Wish us luck!
July 30, 2025
From Oklahoma to D.C., a food activist works to ensure that communities can protect their food systems and their future.
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