The First Amendment Foundation will honor Lucy Morgan with the creation of the Lucy Morgan Award for Open Government Reporting.
The award’s namesake is a former Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the St. Petersburg Times (now the Tampa Bay Times) who broke countless stories using public records. The award honors a Florida journalist who smartly uses public records to report stories exposing corruption, revealing government conflicts of interest or otherwise serving the public interest.
The creation of the award will be officially announced at a cocktail reception Nov. 15 at the Governor’s Club featuring keynote speaker Gilbert King.
King will interview Lucy at the reception and also talk about his new book, Beneath a Ruthless Sun, slated to hit shelves April 2018.
King’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “Devil in the Grove” has garnered much praise for the attention brought to the case of the Groveland Four in recent years. Just this year, Florida legislators issued a formal apology to family members of the Groveland Boys, the four black men who were falsely accused of raping a white woman in 1949.
Copies of Gilbert King’s book, Devil in the Grove will be available for sale. A book signing will follow King’s talk.
Drinks and hors d’oeuvres to be served at the reception. Net proceeds from this event will support the work of the First Amendment Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to transparency in government.
If you go…
When: Nov. 15, 6pm
Where: Governors Club, 202 S. Adams St.
Tickets: $100; can be purchased here