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		Director of Public Information
		212-854-5573,fhk1@columbia.edu		FOR IMMEDIATE USE
									




Philadelphia Reporters Win Columbia's
 Tobenkin Award


	Rita Giordano and Alfred Lubrano of The Philadelphia Inquirer 
 have won the 1997 Paul Tobenkin Memorial Award of the Columbia University 
Graduate School of Journalism for articles that a`wakened the city to the plight of 
the poor in its worst housing project.
	The award will be presented at ceremonies at the school Tuesday, May 20,
 by Acting Dean Sandy Padwe.  It honors "outstanding achievement in the field of 
newspaper writing in the fight against racial and religious hatred, intolerance,
 discrimination and every form of bigotry, reflecting the spirit of Paul Tobenkin," a 
reporter for The New York Herald Tribune  who died in 1959.
	During the national debate on welfare reform last year, Ms. Giordano and
 Mr.Lubrano wrote a five-part series on a crumbling, 50-year-old federal public
 housing project called Passyunk Homes, forgotten and isolated at the edge of
 South Philadelphia.  They reported over seven months on this poorest, most 
welfare-dependent section of the city, describing efforts by its 1,800 poverty-
numbed residents to survive, even hope, in what the series called "welfare's ground zero."
	"Many people write about poor people's lives, but few do it with such
 eloquence, insight and grace," said Professor Robin Reisig, chair of the Tobenkin 
jury of faculty members.
	Ms. Giordano and Mr. Lubrano profiled children in the community, 
drawing assistance from businesses, workers, a foundation and other benefactors
 in the Philadelphia area.
	Ms. Giordano, who has reported extensively on poverty, social services and 
child welfare issues, joined the Inquirer in 1995 after working as a staff writer for
New York Newsday,  the Middletown (N.Y.) Times Herald-Record  and 
The Cincinnati Enquirer.  She was born in Brooklyn and was graduated from 
Syracuse University.
	Mr. Lubrano, also born in Brooklyn, earned his undergraduate degree in 
urban studies from Columbia College and his master's degree in journalism 
from Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism.  He has written for the 
Columbus Citizen-Journal, Columbus Monthly  magazine, The 
(Cleveland) Plain Dealer, the New York Daily News, and New York 
Newsday.  He is now a projects writer for the Inquirer  and an essayist 
for National Public Radio.

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