Judges: The Iowa Gallup Award
for Excellent Journalism Using Polls

Our panel of judges for the 2007 Award include the following:

Alec M. Gallup is Chairman of The Gallup Poll in the United States, and Chairman of The Gallup Organization Ltd. in Great Britain. As well as a director of The Gallup Organisation, Europe; Gallup China and Gallup Hungary. He has been employed by Gallup since 1959 and has directed or played key roles in many of the company’s most ambitious and innovative projects. Areas of responsibility have focused on sampling procedures, question development and design, and analysis and reporting. Gallup’s educational background includes undergraduate work at Princeton University and the University of Iowa. He undertook graduate work in communications and journalism at Stanford University, and studied marketing and advertising research at New York University. His publications include The Great American Success Story (with George Gallup, Jr., Dow Jones-Irwin, 1986), "Death Penalty Sentiment in the United States" (with Hans Zeisel, Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 1989), Presidential Approval: A Source Book (with George Edwards, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), The Gallup Poll Cumulative Index: Public Opinion 1935-1997, Scholarly Resources, 1999), and British Political Opinion 1937-2000: The Gallup Polls (with Anthony King and Robert Wybrow, Politicos Publishing, 2001).

Gary Langer, Director of Polling, ABC News, is one of the nation’s leading news pollsters, known for the depth and acuity of his analysis as well as the breadth of his subject matter. The first and only pollster to have been awarded a news Emmy, Langer has produced influential and groundbreaking surveys on politics, presidential elections, consumer confidence, health care, war and terrorism, education and more—including the first media-sponsored national public opinion polls in Iraq and Afghanistan. The late ABC News anchor Peter Jennings called him “our great pollster.” Ted Koppel, introducing Langer in a 2004 Nightline broadcast, said, “When Gary Langer talks, the White House listens.” Mark Zandi, chief economist of economy.com, calls Langer’s weekly consumer confidence index one of his “five favorite economic indicators;” its readership runs from the halls of the Fed to the towers of Wall Street.

Paul J. Lavrakas, Ph.D., a research psychologist, is Vice President and Senior Research Methodologist for Nielsen Media Research. Previously he was a Professor of Journalism & Communication Studies at Northwestern University (1978-1996) and at Ohio State University (1996-2000). During his academic career he was the founding Faculty Director of the Northwestern University Survey Lab (1982-1996) and the OSU Center for Survey Research (1996-2000). He has written a widely read book on telephone survey methodology and edited three books on election polling, the news media, and democracy. He is co-author with Michael Traugott of The Voters’ Guide to Election Polls (2004; 3rd edition).

Lyombe “Leo” Eko is a professor at The University of Iowa’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication where he teaches courses in Media Law and Ethics, Comparative Communication and Video Production. He received his doctorate in 1997 from Southern Illinois University. Before coming to Iowa, he was an Associate Professor of Journalism and Mass Media Law at the University of Maine.

He has served as a journalist and producer at the African Broadcasting Union (URTNA) in Nairobi, Kenya, and at Cameroon Radio and Television Corporation.

Professor Eko has produced several video documentaries on African topics. Three of them won honorable mention at festivals in Germany and Canada, and are part of the holdings of several American and Canadian university libraries. His research has been published in Communication Law and Policy (Journal of the Law and Policy Division of AEJMC), Communications and the Law, The International Journal of Communication Law and Policy, Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review, The Journal of Black Studies, Journal of Third World Studies, the Journal for Journalism in Southern Africa (Ecquid Novi), the Encyclopedia of International Media and Communications, the Encyclopedia of Radio, and several book chapters.

Paul Pohlman is Adviser to the President and a member of Poynter's leadership and management faculty. His primary area of interest is in developing newsroom leaders, and he is known for his ability to lead a group in a focused and lively conversation on leadership issues. He helps participants become aware of their leadership styles, clarify their roles and priorities, and develop their coaching and team-building skills. He also leads programs for international journalists such as the Foster Davis Fellowship Program for African journalists and joint journalism education programs with the Institute for the Advancement of Journalism in Johannesburg, South Africa.

He is a former director of management development programs and newspaper management education at the University of Chicago and conducted leadership programs for the American Newspaper Publishers Association for many years. He earned a B.A. from Cornell College and an M.A. in history from the University of Chicago.