SUNY New Paltz Professor Earns AP Award for Newspaper Column

NEW PALTZ — Rob Miraldi, who teaches journalism in the Communication and Media Department at SUNY New Paltz, has received the second place award from the Associated Press for his monthly newspaper column on freedom of speech and the First Amendment. His work was entered in the column writing category.

During the past six years, Miraldi has won various state and national awards for the column, “First Freedom.” Among them have been a first prize from the New York State Newspaper Publisher’s Association, twice the recipient of the New York State Bar Association’s John Peter Zenger Award (for best commentary on legal issues), twice the runner-up in the Scripps-Howard National Journalism Award for the First Amendment (in 1995 and 1996), and honorable mention in the New York State Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Award. His column appears in the Poughkeepsie Journal on the first Sunday of each month.

Miraldi earned his doctorate in American studies from New York University and his master’s degree in journalism from Boston University. His undergraduate degree, in political science, was from SUNY Oneonta. He is the author of Muckraking and Objectivity: Journalism’s Colliding Traditions (Greenwood Press).

A former newspaper reporter, Miraldi has taught journalism at New Paltz for 17 years. In 1991, he was a Fulbright Scholar at the Royal University at Utrecht, the Netherlands. Miraldi lives in Stone Ridge with his wife and two children.