A story in the latest edition of The University of Tulsa’s Switchyard magazine has been named a finalist for the American Society of Magazine Editors’ 60th annual National Magazine Awards. One of the most prestigious journalism-awards programs in the United States, the National Magazine Awards are sponsored by ASME in association with the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
“Power Failure: On Landscape and Abandonment” by Mya Frazier appears in the winter 2025 Switchyard magazine, which is the fourth edition produced by Editor Ted Genoways, who also serves as a presidential professor of media studies at UTulsa. Frazier is a finalist in the Feature Writing category alongside writers from The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, Esquire, The Marshall Project, and Deseret.
“For years, I’ve been obsessively reporting on the many lucrative tax breaks big tech’s data centers get, but I was never given a chance to write about them as objects,” Frazier said. “Ted let me write something about what data centers really mean, both within the landscape and as a metaphor for how power, in all its many forms, works today.”
Frazier’s article was produced in partnership with the Food & Environment Reporting Network.
“I’m thrilled to see Mya’s feature story on data centers get the attention it deserves,” Genoways said. “Her examination of how big tech is leveraging its financial and political power to push through tax breaks and zoning changes that disadvantage rural communities and threaten water resources is deeply researched but also told with a local’s knowledge and sense of outrage. The prose jumps off the page. I’m not surprised the judges responded to this urgent and timely essay.”
Switchyard was nominated for a National Magazine Award last year for best Single-Topic Issue for “The Food Issue,” produced in partnership with the Food & Environment Reporting Network. In 2024, Switchyard also received a gold medal for photography from the Society of Publication Designers and four nominations for the American Society of Magazine Editors Awards for Design, Photography, and Illustration.
Last year, Switchyard was honored by the James Beard Foundation for Food Coverage in a General Interest Publication and writer Jori Lewis received a James Beard Award nomination in the Foodways category for her essay “Tell Me Why the Watermelon Grows.”
ASME will announce the winners of the 2025 awards on April 10. The winners will receive their awards at a reception at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in June.