 |
Saturday November 7, 2009
|
|
Saturday November 7, 2009
|
The Miami Herald's Jack Dolan, Matthew Haggman and Rob Barry won one of the nation's most prestigious business journalism awards Oct. 7 for revealing the state's failure to police Florida's troubled mortgage industry.
The reporters captured the gold medal in the Barlett & Steele Awards for Investigative Business Journalism for their 2008 series, "Borrowers Betrayed", showing that Florida regulators allowed thousands of people with criminal histories -- including armed robbers and racketeers -- to work in the mortgage industry since 2000. The series was edited by Investigations Editor Michael Sallah.The award, presented by the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism at Arizona State University, comes with a $5,000 prize.The four-part series showed that regulators failed to alert police to crooked mortgage brokerages and dropped investigations into shoddy operations while the state had the highest rate of mortgage fraud in the country."The Herald really nailed this investigation, uncovering a unique angle on the theme of the year,'' the judges said. "It found a staggering degree of nonfeasance on the part of the state, bringing perpetrators to life and showing the human impact of misdeeds.''The reporters will be honored at a banquet on Jan. 6 at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. Runners up for the award included Bloomberg Markets magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The Seattle Times and ABA Journal.A McClatchy series about the Guantanamo Bay detention center, "Guantanamo: Beyond the Law," was declared the top investigative project among large websites by the Online News Association Oct. 3 in San Francisco during its annual convention.
The 2008 project, by reporters Tom Lasseter and Matthew Schofield, was based on interviews with 66 former Guantanamo detainees, who recounted how they were treated at Guantanamo and at the U.S. detention center at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Lasseter and Schofield traveled to eight countries over 11 months to research the stories.The investigation of the detention system created after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks found that the U.S. imprisoned innocent men, subjected them to abuse, stripped them of their legal rights and allowed Islamic militants to turn the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba into a school for jihad.The online project totaled more than 100,000 words and was published in full at McClatchyDC.com, the website of the McClatchy Washington Bureau. It consisted of 12 stories that summarized the reporters' findings, 65 stories on the interviewed former prisoners and photographs and video by Travis Heying, a photographer with McClatchy's Wichita Eagle.The internet presentation also included a searchable database and interactive graphics designed by McClatchy Interactive's staff in Raleigh N.C., graphics by the staff of McClatchy-Tribune Information Services and an archive of relevant documents. A shorter version was distributed as a five-day series to McClatchy's 30 newspapers.The full project can be viewed at www.mcclatchydc.com/detainees.The Fresno Bee's E.J. Schultz won top honors for overall statehouse coverage from Capitolbeat, the national association of state capitol reporters and editors.
Schultz won first place for beat reporting among wire services and newspapers over 75,000 circulation. Also honored in that category were statehouse reporters from the Associated Press in California and Ohio, the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times.Schultz has been The Fresno Bee's state Capitol bureau reporter since 2006. He joined the newspaper as a business reporter in 2004.The awards were announced this month at the association's annual conference in Indianapolis.The Miami Herald and The Kansas City Star both received awards from the National Association of Black Journalists Aug. 8 Tampa, Fla., at the group's annual convention.
Miami Herald Caribbean correspondent Jacqueline Charles was honored as the best international newspaper reporter for her 2008 coverage of Haiti, "A Trail of Grief."Chalres, a 15-year veteran Miami Herald reporter was recognized for her compelling and comprehensive coverage of last year's series of tropical storms that devastated several cities throughout Haiti.A Kansas City Star series about Kansas City's murderous August 2008 won the news series category for newspapers with circulation greater than 150,000. The two-day series, "Murders Big Month," beat out six other finalists - including entries from The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune.Kansas City Star reporters Chrstine Vendel, Lee Hill Kavanaugh and Malcom Garcia wrote the series, published in September 2008.One article took readers along as detectives investigated cases. Others showed the effect the killings had on families that lost loved ones that August when the city saw a record 21 homicides. Nineteen of the victims were black.The National Association of Black Journalists is one of the four major minority journalists associations holding national conventions this summer. The McClatchy Company is a corporate sponsor of each convention.A series of investigations into how several quasi-governmental organizations in Kentucky spend tax dollars has earned the Lexington Herald-Leader a Public Service Award from the Associated Press Managing Editors Association.
APME, an association of editors at AP's 1,500 member newspapers in the United States and newspapers served by the Canadian Press in Canada, recognizes journalism excellence with annual awards in five categories.This year's winners were selected during a meeting of the association's board of directors in New York. The awards will be presented during the group's annual conference Oct. 28 to 30 in St. Louis.The Lexington Herald-Leader won the Public Service Award given to newspapers with a circulation of 40,000 to 150,000. The Herald-Leader's "It's Your Money" series, which began late last year, has examined spending at Blue Grass Airport, the Lexington Public Library, Kentucky League of Cities and Kentucky Association of Counties.The stories revealed that the groups had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on questionable travel, meals and other expenses.After the initial airport stories appeared, the director of the airport resigned, as did several top members of his staff.In addition, State Auditor Crit Luallen completed an audit of the airport and issued 28 recommendations to help other groups that receive taxpayer money avoid similar situations. Luallen also has launched an audit of the League and KACo.The Lexington Fayette Urban County Government is conducting an audit of the public library. In July, the top two officers on the library's board were replaced by the mayor; the board then fired the agency's chief executive.Two Sacramento Bee reporters have won a national award from the Society of Professional Journalists for their work uncovering problems and errors at Sacramento County's Child Protective Services department.
Marjie Lundstrom and Sam Stanton were among three recipients of the organization's 2009 First Amendment Award for the two-part series "Unprotected" and subsequent coverage that, the judges noted, led to a grand jury investigation. The stories can be viewed at www.sacbee.com/cps.Along with the other two winners, The Oklahoman/NewsOK.com and the Detroit Free Press, Lundstrom and Stanton were "recognized for their extraordinarily strong efforts to preserve and strengthen the First Amendment."For the CPS series, reporting involved the first test of a new open records law that required release of otherwise private child welfare records whenever a child dies. Lundstrom wrote some of her own legal filings and appeared in court to secure access to records."Joining forces with veteran Bee reporter Stanton," a news release announcing the award said, "the two fought to hold the system accountable."The Charlotte Observer and The Miami Herald each won 2009 Gerald Loeb Awards June 29, among the highest honors in business journalism.
Charlotte Observer reporter Rick Rothacker won a Loeb Award for beat writing for "The Fall of Wachovia," his coverage last year of Charlotte-based Wachovia Corp., its collapse and ultimate takeover by Wells Fargo & Co.Rothacker tied for the beat writing award with Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times business columnist Gretchen Morgenson, who won for her coverage of Wall Street.In the medium and small newspapers category, The Charlotte Observer won an honorable mention for "The Cruelest Cuts," the paper's highly decorated investigation into the poultry industry, which has already won more than seven national awards. "The Cruelest Cuts" told readers how N.C.-based House of Raeford Farms hid injuries from federal regulators, blocked injured workers from seeing doctors and hauled others to work hours after surgery for broken bones and severed fingers. Staffers who worked on the series included Ames Alexander, Franco Ordonez, Kerry Hall, Peter St. Onge and Ted Mellnik.Jack Dolan, Matthew Haggman and Rob Barry of The Miami Herald won a Loeb Award in the medium and small newspapers category for "Borrowers Betrayed," an investigation into the Florida mortgage crisis that revealed, among other findings, that thousands with criminal pasts were working in the mortgage industry and peddling home loans.The Loeb Awards were established in 1957 and are administered by the UCLA Anderson School of Management. The prizes were announced during an awards ceremony June 29 in New York City.The Charlotte Observer's widely lauded investigation of working conditions in the poultry industry has won yet another prestigious award: a 2009 Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism.
The Journalism Center on Children & Families, a nonprofit affiliate of the University of Maryland's Philip Merrill College of Journalism, announced June 24 that "The Cruelest Cuts" received a Casey Medal in the project/series category for publications with greater than 200,000 circulation.The Charlotte Observer shared the top projects prize with USA Today, which also received a Casey Medal in the category for its investigation into the impact of industrial pollution on schools and children."The Cruelest Cuts," reported by Ames Alexander, Kerry Hall, Franco Ordoņez, Peter St. Onge and Ted Mellnik, told readers how N.C. poultry giant House of Raeford Farms hid injuries from federal regulators, blocked injured workers from seeing doctors and hauled others to work -- hours after surgery for broken bones and severed fingers.The investigation, published in 2008, has won several other national awards, including a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, the National Headliner award, Taylor Family Award for Fairness in Newspapers and the American Society of Newspaper Editors' first place award for local accountability reporting.Casey Medal winners receive a medal and a $1,000 prize. More details are available here.Veteran Miami Herald photographer Patrick Farrell was awarded journalism's biggest award April 20, the Pulitzer Prize, for his harrowing images of the victims of the storms that ravaged Haiti in 2008.
Farrell, 49, visited Haiti half a dozen times during last year's hurricane season, capturing scenes of the dead and the survivors of a series of storms that generated devastating flooding across the impoverished nation. (See his Pulitzer-winning photography here.)He was in Haiti the night Hurricane Ike -- the fourth storm to hit there in a month -- washed across the already overwhelmed countryside, drowning even more homes and people.Farrell's published photographs, along with stories by Miami Herald Caribbean correspondent Jacqueline Charles and Miami Herald reporter Trenton Daniel, are credited with helping raise international awareness of the storms' toll on Haiti and its people's struggle to survive in the aftermath."Patrick's photography is the most provocative and at times disturbing storytelling work that I have seen or edited," said Luis Rios, The Miami Herald's director of photography. "It is exceptional documentary photography with a purpose -- to chronicle the misery and heartache of the Haitian people."The Pulitzer Prize jurors recognized a package of 19 black-and-white photographs, entitled "A People in Despair: Haiti's Year Without Mercy." The images range from the flooded streets of Gonaives, to the aftermath of a storm-related school collapse in Port au Prince, and the deadly toll on children in the rural town of Cabaret who were washed away from their parents' grasp by rushing floodwaters.In all, more than 800 Haitians died and more than 1 million were left homeless by the unrelenting series of storms.Farrell's Haiti photographs have also won the Society of Professional Journalists' 2008 Sigma Delta Chi Award for excellence in journalism in Photography Spot News, as well as awards in the Pictures of the Year International competition and the 75th National Headliner Awards.Farrell, a Miami native, has been a Herald staff photographer since 1987. His Herald assignments have taken him to Turkey, Haiti, Cuba and throughout Central and South America, as well as the Caribbean. He was part of the Herald staff that won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for the coverage of Hurricane Andrew's devastation in South Florida.The Charlotte Observer's investigation of working conditions in the poultry industry has won the 2009 award for outstanding domestic newspaper reporting from the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice in Human Rights.
"The Cruelest Cuts," reported by Ames Alexander, Kerry Hall, Franco Ordoņez, Peter St. Onge and Ted Mellnik, told readers how N.C. poultry giant House of Raeford Farms hid injuries from federal regulators, blocked injured workers from seeing doctors and hauled others to work -- hours after surgery for broken bones and severed fingers."Based on exhaustive research, this report exposes how the poultry industry ignored and threatened workers injured on the job, while creating an illusion of safety inside their plant," wrote judges."These companies employed practices which boosted profits while jeopardizing the health of thousands of vulnerable poultry workers. The investigation built an air-tight case against a private company resulting in federal and state investigations and tougher labor legislation."It marks the third time The Charlotte Observer has won an RFK award, which honors reporting on issues that reflect Robert F. Kennedy's concerns, including human rights, social justice and the power of individual action. The newspaper won the center's grand prize in 1980 for its series on brown lung disease among textile workers.Observer Editor Rick Thames noted the investigation took two years, partly because the large number of Latinos in the poultry work force presented language and cultural barriers. Many of those workers feared that speaking out about abuse could lead to job loss or deportation."This award ... recognizes the most precious value of a newspaper in a free society," said Thames. "Only a newspaper would have spent months getting beyond the official explanations of government and business to discover what was really happening inside the Carolinas poultry industry. And only a newspaper would have pressed on after learning that many of the abused workers only spoke Spanish and had few, if any, rights."The House of Raeford could count on the second-class status of these workers to help keep them compliant. It could count on the state's labor department to look the other way under the pretext of a business-friendly climate. It could count on failed federal immigration policies to regularly replenish its exploitable work force."What it could not count on was this newspaper, which operates independently of all of those institutions."The investigation has won five other national awards, including the National Headliner award, Taylor Family Award for Fairness in Newspapers and the American Society of Newspaper Editors' first place award for local accountability reporting.The RFK Journalism Awards will be presented May 28 at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. A grand prize will be awarded to one of the category winners.Winners receive a cash prize and a bust of Kennedy created by Robert Berks. More details: www.rfkcenter.org
The McClatchy Company