June 30th, 2006 • Quill Archives
SDX Awards: Magazine investigative reporting
11 December 2002, 01:00 — Detainee was reminded that no one loved, cared or remembered him. He was reminded that he was less than human and that animals had more freedom and love than he does. He was taken outside to see a family of banana rats.
June 30th, 2006 • Quill Archives
SDX Awards: TV investigative reporting, other markets
The results of WKRC reporter Jeff Hirsh’s investigation likely would have been easier to document in print. But with some ingenuity, he turned it into one of TV’s best investigative reports. “These were difficult stories to do for television,” said Hirsh.
June 30th, 2006 • Quill Archives
SDX Awards: Magazine public service
It takes a hurricane. It takes a catastrophe like Katrina to strip away the old evasions, hypocrisies and not-so-benign neglect. It takes the sight of the United States with a big black eye — visible around the world — to help the rest of us begin to see again.
June 30th, 2006 • Quill Archives
SDX Awards: TV feature reporting, network/ Top 25 markets
Ed Davis had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and decided not to prolong his life through unnatural measures. He was another person destined to pass quietly, even when a similar situation involving Terry Schiavo was still making noise. By documenting his last days, CNN’s “A Lesson Before Dying” undoubtedly left viewers with a heavy heart.
June 30th, 2006 • Quill Archives
SDX Awards: Newspaper deadline reporting, over 100,000
Disfigured, increasingly destitute and desperate, Bart A. Ross spent the past dozen years battling the medical and legal system, convinced he’d been wronged. The fight took the 57-year-old Polish immigrant on a revenge-seeking odyssey, culminating with the slaying of Judge Joan Lefkow’s husband and mother on Feb.
June 30th, 2006 • Quill Archives
SDX Awards: Newsletters
The story was there. Healthcare Risk Management Editor Greg Freeman just had to draw the lines. “(Freeman’s reporting) shows how enterprising journalism comes from connecting the dots and revealing the picture that appears,” said the judges. “At worst, this work reveals an attack in the works.
June 30th, 2006 • Quill Archives
SDX Awards: TV feature reporting, other markets
News 12 Westchester, N.Y., reporter Juri Tatsuuma’s feature “Domestic Violence: When Love Hurts” disrobed a social problem in an area that had been cloaked by money and material wealth. “The two-part series attempted to highlight how Westchester County, with its upscale image and affluence, was not immune to the problem of domestic violence,” said Tatsuuma.
June 30th, 2006 • Quill Archives
SDX Awards: Newspaper editorial writing, Rick Attig and Doug Bates
The sometimes disturbing film “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” was filmed at Oregon State Hospital. But in terms of being truly disconcerting, the fictional story is no match for one told by Rick Attig and Doug Bates about the current conditions of the decrepit asylum.
June 30th, 2006 • Quill Archives
SDX Awards: Art/Graphics, photography spot news
Without pictures, most accounts of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation would hardly seem believable. SUVs trapped in 8 feet of water on the interstate. Looters wading through downtown New Orleans streets. Morbid messages scribbled on rooftops. Anxious residents floating on mattresses and planks.
June 30th, 2006 • Quill Archives
SDX Awards: TV documentaries, network/Top 25 markets
Peter Van Sant: We are journalists from the United States. We have bought you because we want to set you free. Nicoleta: (Through translator) I thank you from the bottom of my heart. You saved me from that hell. This was the reaction of a 17-year-old girl from Bucharest that was sold to a CBS 48 Hours news team after hearing word she was now free from being a sex slave.
June 30th, 2006 • Quill Archives
SDX Awards: Newspaper non-deadline reporting, over 100,000
For the first time in her journalistic career, all Liz Bowie had to do was watch. He lingered hour after hour, day after day, on a basketball court jammed between a fast-food joint and a drug rehab center. Others came and went for a few games before moving on.
June 30th, 2006 • Quill Archives
SDX Awards: Art/Graphics, photography features
The images published in the Commercial Appeal’s “Born to Die” series awoke a sleeping community to an alarming problem. They also caused photographer Karen Pulfer Focht many restless nights. “I have three children of my own,” said Focht. “I would often come home at night and hold them tight.
June 30th, 2006 • Quill Archives
SDX Awards: TV documentaries, other markets
Instead of scouring for what’s broken in today’s public schools, “Making Schools Work,” a documentary devised by South Carolina Educational Television, stresses the positive and gives teachers something to work with instead of just heaping more criticism on an underappreciated profession.
June 30th, 2006 • Quill Archives
SDX awards: Newspaper non-deadline reporting, under 100,000
In an article called “The Speculators,” reporting done by the staff of the East Valley Tribune was so thorough, there was no room for conjecture. Reporter Mark Flatten spearheaded the effort and wrote the story, one that combined extensive research and stellar storytelling to paint a clear picture of who really controlled the territory in Mesa, Ariz.,
June 30th, 2006 • Quill Archives
SDX Awards: Art/Graphics, sports photography
Dan Hubbell has been a photographer for the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association since 1990. He’s snapped more than 600,000 shots of man battling beast in arenas full of dirt. But the photo he took of cowboy Kyle Whitaker tumbling off the aptly named Dump Wagon was one of a kind.
June 30th, 2006 • Quill Archives
SDX Awards: TV public service, network/Top 25 markets
KTTV Fox 11 reporter Christine Devine has good reason to trust in the newscast’s “Wednesday’s Child” segments. “What keeps me believing in the children and adoption?” Devine said. “My little sister from Vietnam. The little girl who once followed me around the house, mimicking every move.
June 30th, 2006 • Quill Archives
SDX Awards: Newspaper investigative reporting, over 100,000
“Toxic Legacy” had all the drama of a Hollywood script. The scary part: every word of it was true. “Given the complexity of tracking so many disparate story lines — it was as if the writers for The Sopranos and Erin Brockovich got together — the team delivered a clear and cogent indictment of one of the most powerful companies in America,” said Editor Frank Scandale of The Record.
June 30th, 2006 • Quill Archives
SDX Awards: Art/Graphics, editorial cartooning
The numbers don’t seem to add up. Twelve hours of work scribbling 2,000 names yielded only three alphabetic letters and one question for editorial cartoonist Mike Luckovich. One could question how this is possible, but he would be better served inquiring why.
June 30th, 2006 • Quill Archives
SDX Awards: TV public service, other markets
Through their “Troubled Ten” series, reporter Dedrick Russell and the staff of WBTV News in Charlotte, N.C., demonstrated their dedication to education. “It is unusual for a television station to have such a deep commitment to education, but we believe one of the most important issues facing our viewers is their children’s education,” said WBTV in its letter to the judges.
June 30th, 2006 • Quill Archives
SDX Awards: Newspaper investigative reporting, less than 100,000
Imagine being locked in jail, just because a scientist mislabeled a test tube. It happened to Leslie Lincoln, and the Winston-Salem Journal bailed her out. Lincoln’s story was the first part of reporter Phoebe Zerwick’s series “Crime and Science: The weight of evidence.”
June 30th, 2006 • Quill Archives
SDX Awards: Art/Graphics, photo illustration
Bruce Ely’s photo illustration gives new meaning to an old basketball cliche about saying that a player who hustles is “all over the court.” While no player has ever literally been in different places on the floor at the same time, The Oregonian photojournalist’s “The Omnipresent Damon” gave basketball fans a chance to see what that might look like.
June 30th, 2006 • Quill Archives
SDX Awards: Online, deadline reporting, affiliated
During the murder trial of Joseph P. Smith, HeraldTribune.com kept the city of Sarasota, Fla., connected. “HeraldTribune.com became a place for the community to learn about the case and discuss what they discovered,” said Lucas Grindley, content manager of HeraldTribune.com. “A prominent tease on the home page asked readers to participate in a message board that grew to more than 500 posts.
June 30th, 2006 • Quill Archives
SDX Awards: Newspaper feature writing, over 100,000
The sound of the crash was like heavy metal doors slamming shut on the pre-dawn stillness. BANG! … BANG! … BANG! And then the morning silence returned. Within that flash of time on a two-lane Osceola Country road, the destinies of six people collided with a force that still reverberates more than three years later.
June 30th, 2006 • Quill Archives
SDX Awards: Art/Graphics, informational graphics
When Pope John Paul II died, the Los Angeles Times relied on its graphics staff to make the major metropolitan periodical’s coverage a work of art. “We were dealing with a breaking news story that was covered by newspapers, magazines and TV stations around the world, and it was a challenge to differentiate our coverage from what people would see elsewhere,” said Les Dunseith, graphics editor of the Times.
June 30th, 2006 • Quill Archives
SDX Awards: Research
Sure, journalists aren’t immune to error. But are we actually mistake-prone? According to a study by University of Oregon associate professor Scott R. Maier and University of North Carolina Knight Chair and professor Philip Meyer, journalists aren’t practicing what they preach about accuracy.
June 30th, 2006 • Quill Archives
SDX Awards: Newspaper Washington Correspondence
Like thousands of his fellow veterans of America’s wars, Alfred Brown died waiting. In 1945, when he was a 19-year-old soldier fighting in Italy, shrapnel from an enemy shell ripped into his abdomen. His wounds were so severe that he was twice administered last rites.
June 30th, 2006 • Quill Archives
SDX Awards: Radio breaking news reporting, CBS
As the eye of Hurricane Katrina approached New Orleans, ears turned to CBS Radio. The staff of the news radio network immersed themselves in Katrina, making their reporting more authentic and prolific than their competition. “Our reporters visited all areas affected by this tragedy,” said CBS News in its letter to the judges.
June 30th, 2006 • Quill Archives
SDX Awards: Online, non-deadline reporting, affiliated
For the past year, Maj. Steve Beck has had an unenviable job. The marine was assigned to “casualty notification” duty. Instead of being overseas fighting off terrorists, Beck has found himself stuck in Denver fighting off tears. In the past 12 months, he has seen inside the caskets, learned each Marine’s name and nickname, touched the toys they grew up with and read the letters they wrote home.
June 30th, 2006 • Quill Archives
SDX Awards: Newspaper Foreign Correspondence
At his most desperate, when he had no more borrowed money for his son’s legal defense, Xie Yujun went to a hospital. He knew of China’s black market in body parts. He wanted to sell his eyes. He was refused. Mr.
June 30th, 2006 • Quill Archives
SDX Awards: Radio investigative reporting, New Hampshire Public Radio
I was on the unit one time. … We were eatin’, and some of the residents were exchangin’ words. … Instead of the staff tryin’ to figure out what the problem is, they say, “Is you all gonna keep woofin? Is y’all gonna fight or what?”
June 30th, 2006 • Quill Archives
SDX Awards: Online, deadline reporting, independent
No one knows if vaccines such as Tamiflu and Relenza would provide the public the necessary protection from a possible bird flu pandemic. With uncertainty surrounding the subject, it’s imperative not to forget what the most important medicine for concerned citizens really is.
June 30th, 2006 • Quill Archives
SDX Awards: Newspaper general column writing
After reading Oregonian columnist Steve Duin’s writing, it’s hard not to get emotionally attached. “His work engages emotionally with the reader, and with the person he’s writing about. That’s what good columnists do,” said the judges. “His writing is unpretentious and doesn’t get in the way of what he’s trying to say or attract attention away from his point.”
