It's a Wrap"the 10th Annual Whistleblower Summit & Film Festival Comes to Close. Pillar Awards and New Investigative and Original News (ION) Award Winners Announced on National Whistleblower Appreciation Day.
WASHINGTON " The week-long Whistleblower Summit & Film Festival closed yesterday. Hosted by ACORN 8, in association with the Northeast Filmmakers Lab (NEFL) and the Society of Professional Journalists (DC Pro), the 10th Annual Whistleblowers Summit & Film Festival (a hybrid event) returned to Capitol Hill and was a rousing success.
The week started with a bang when last year's Shaw Marvin Pillar Award Winner, Reality Winner, was featured on CBS News Show 60 Minutes on Sunday, July 24. Ms. Winner credits receiving the Pillar Award from the Whistleblower Summit for helping her cope and return to society after being released from prison.
The formal dates the Whistleblower Summit ran were July 25 through July 31, 2022. The official kick-off began with an Opening Keynote presentation by New York Detective Frank Serpico, who received a Lifetime Achievement Pillar Award in recognition for his valor on May 15, 1972, and a subsequent lifetime of service for the public good. NYT Reporter David Burnham and Inspector Paul Delise were also acknowledged with this award. Always a summit and fan favorite, Serpico regaled the audience about how important the relationship between the whistleblower, reporters, publisher, and entertainment industry was to his story. He also described the continuing retaliation and disrespect that he receives from New York City Police Officials to this day.
On the entertainment side, this year's Whistleblower Summit & Film Festival inaugurated a Screenplay contest with Final Draft and featured the "Hollywood Pitch Lab," a collaboration with Northeast Filmmakers Lab and Bonsai Creative. This three-day immersive training concluded with a "Pitch Contest" that included filmmakers, screenwriters, and whistleblowers. In addition, the summit hosted a Capitol Hill Screening of the Netflix docuseries Meltdown: Three Mile Island presented by the Government Accountability Project. Finally, the National Whistleblower Appreciation Day featured the films Truth Teller and the United States of Distraction: Fighting the Fake News Invasion.
However, the Whistleblower Summit & Film Festival is not all talk and movies. Whistleblower Summit participants returned to their civil & human rights tradition of incorporating direct action into the week's activities by supporting John Stewart on Capitol Hill and protesting with/for veterans following the congressional brinksmanship stalling the PACT Act, a bill to help vets with exposure to toxic burn pits in Iran and Afghanistan.
Speaking of veterans, this year's Shaw Marvin Pillar Award Winners, Alex and Eugne Vindman, thanked the summit for honoring them with the highest military whistleblower honor that the whistleblower community bestows. His breakthrough autobiography Here Right Matters is also a Whistleblower Summit book selection.
Celebrity Comedian Host Marsha Warfield does not consider herself a "whistleblower" but proudly identifies as a truth-teller. Marsha supports all those who advocate for truth and participated in the Pillar Awards Presentation along with Marcel Reid on National Whistleblower Appreciation Day. However, the first Investigative and Original News (ION) Award was presented by Louis Clark to Paul Thacker, Freelance Reporter for "Phizer's Problematic Vaccine," on behalf of Sharyl Attkisson.
The complete listing of Pillar Awardees is below:
Pillar Award Winners (2022)
Frank Wills Award: Ryan Busse, Gun Manufacture Whistleblower
Martha Mitchell Award: Jonel Wagoner USDA Forest Service
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