By Mike Jordan Laskey
We’re proud to announce that our Jesuit Conference’s Office of Communications and Vocation Promotion won eight 2021 Catholic Press Awards last week, including honors for the AMDG podcast and various video, written and social media content.
The Catholic Press Awards are presented annually by the Catholic Media Association, an association of publishers and communication professionals in Catholic media. The association sponsors various award programs that honor works that inform and promote the mission of the Church.
AMDG, a weekly podcast show on spirituality, culture and social justice featuring conversations with Jesuits and friends like Dr. Anthony Fauci, author Malcolm Gladwell, Sister Helen Prejean and Fr. Jim Martin, SJ, won top overall podcast (communications department division) plus a first-place honor for its special series on the Covid-19 pandemic. You can find AMDG wherever you get podcasts.
“God in Five Things: Architecture,” first-place winner in the category of “Best Freestanding Presentation of Online Video – Catechesis,” is a video that features Jesuit architecture professor Fr. Gilbert Sunghera of the University of Detroit Mercy. His reflections on his five favorite buildings are accompanied by lively animation and vivid images that my colleague Eric Clayton put together.
Two vocations-related initiatives also took home awards, including the new vocations website BeAJesuit.org. Eric and our webmaster and graphic designer Marcus Bleech worked with web designer Ashley Paul Swanson on the new site. We were also honored for a series of Instagram “takeovers” on our vocations account, which features various Jesuits showing behind-the-scenes glimpses of their everyday lives.
Our content leading up to the 2020 U.S. presidential election, from a long document on faith and politics to a podcast series to shorter articles and prayers, won a second-place prize for best 2020 election outreach. MegAnne Liebsch is our communications manager for justice and ecology, and she has a big hand in creating and curating our content related to faith-filled citizenship.
Eric won an external newsletter award for his weekly spirituality reflection series. Subscribe to get that every Wednesday here.
Finally, our overall social media efforts were given an honorable mention. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Becky Sindelar coordinates most of our social media presence.
It’s an honor to work on this great team and we’re excited to keep producing multimedia content that promotes Ignatian spirituality and the good news of Jesus Christ.
Mike Jordan Laskey is the communications director for the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States.