A Magazine by the Society of Professional Journalists



July 14th, 2009 • Quill Archives
SDX Award Winners: Online Deadline Reporting

Deadline Reporting (Affiliated) WINNER: STAFF, ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH “Kirkwood City Hall Shootings” Shortly after 7 p.m. Feb. 7, Charles Lee “Cookie” Thornton burst into a city council meeting in Kirkwoord, Mo., pulled a handgun from his coat and began shooting. As people tried to take cover or flee, he moved swiftly across the room, firing.


July 14th, 2009 • Quill Archives
SDX Award Winners: Online Non-Deadline Reporting

Non-Deadline Reporting (Affiliated) WINNER: STAFF, LOS ANGELES TIMES “Mexico Under Siege” Thousands of civilians have been killed indiscriminately. Kidnapping, torture and brutality are rampant. The population in key combat zones lives in terror, and the president has said his country is at war.


July 14th, 2009 • Quill Archives
SDX Award Winners: Online Investigative Reporting

Investigative Reporting (Affiliated) WINNER: CHRISTINE YOUNG, JOHN PERTEL, CHRISTOPHER MELE & PATRICK MULLEN, TIMES HERALD-RECORD “I Didn’t Do That Murder” Lebrew Jones, a mentally disabled security guard, was convicted in 1989 on the basis of a nonsensical statement he gave police after 20 hours of questioning without a lawyer.


July 14th, 2009 • Quill Archives
SDX Award Winners: Online Public Service Journalism

Public Service in Online Journalism (Affiliated) WINNER: THE OKLAHOMAN “Your Right to Know/Know It Series” “You have cancer.” The words take your breath away, say those who have heard them. The shock seems surreal. Time stops and yet races by, they say.


July 13th, 2009 • Quill Archives
SDX Award Winners: Radio Categories

Breaking News Reporting WINNER: MELISSA BLOCK & ANDREA HSU, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO “Chengdu, China Earthquake Coverage” Oh, my goodness, we’re in the middle of an earthquake. The whole block is shaking. … The top of the church is falling down. The ground is shaking underneath our feet and all of the people are running out into the street.


July 13th, 2009 • Quill Archives
SDX Awards Winners: Television Breaking News Coverage

Breaking News Coverage (Network/Syndication Service/Program Service) WINNER: ALEXANDRA WALLACE, MARY LAURENCE FLYNN, RICHARD ENGEL & MADELEINE HAERINGER, “NBC NIGHTLY NEWS WITH BRIAN WILLIAMS” “Tip of the Spear” With just 150 men, 29-year-old Capt. Jimmy Howell has a daunting mission: to drive the Taliban and al-Qaida fighters out of the Korengal Valley, their main safe haven in Afghanistan.


July 13th, 2009 • Quill Archives
SDX Winners: Television Investigative Reporting

Investigative Reporting (Network/Syndication Service/Program Service) WINNER: SCOTT PELLEY, TOM HONEYSETT, NICOLE YOUNG & SOLLY GRANATSTEIN, CBS NEWS’ “60 MINUTES” “The Wasteland” Scott Pelley: Tonight we’re going to take you to one of the most toxic places on earth, a place that government officials and gangsters don’t want you to see.


July 13th, 2009 • Quill Archives
SDX Award Winners: Television Feature Reporting

Feature Reporting (Network/Syndication Service/Program Service) WINNER: RICK KAPLAN, KIMBERLY DOZIER & ASHLEY VELIE, CBS NEWS “The War at Home” Twenty-two year old combat medic Jonathan Norrell volunteered for every mission during his year in Iraq. He was bombed, ambushed, treating wounded under fire — and the memories still haunt him, CBS News correspondent Kimberly Dozier reports.


July 13th, 2009 • Quill Archives
SDX Award Winners: Newspaper Feature Writing

Feature Writing (Circulation 100,000+) WINNER: AMY ELLIS NUTT, THE STAR-LEDGER “The Accidental Artist” He had been weighed down by the baggage of loss for so long. Now, in taking up his artist’s life again, he realized all the pieces were there: his youth, his wife and children, his work as a chiropractor, his stroke, his brother’s death, even his success as an artist.


July 13th, 2009 • Quill Archives
SDX Award Winners: Television Documentaries

Television Documentaries (Network/Syndication Service/Program Service) WINNER: KURT KUENNE, MSNBC “Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father” “Dear Zachary” is a first-person account of the life and murder of Dr. Andrew Bagby (1973-2001), whose killer fled to Canada, went on to bear his child and walked free on bail awaiting trail, giving her the opportunity to kill again.


July 13th, 2009 • Quill Archives
SDX Award Winner: Newspaper Editorial Writing

Editorial Writing WINNER: JOHN P. MCCORMICK, MARIE DILLON & BRUCE DOLD, CHICAGO TRIBUNE “The Illinois Culture of Political Sleaze” It has been three days since Gov. Rod Blagojevich was named in a criminal complaint that sets out charges of audacious behavior, including a campaign to sell a U.S.


July 13th, 2009 • Quill Archives
SDX Award Winners: Television Public Service

Public Service in Television (Network/Syndication Service/Program Service) WINNER: “CBS EVENING NEWS, WEEKEND EDITION” “AIDS in the African American Community” This story originated after the release of a report by a Southern-based AIDS advocacy group, indicating that Southern states, particularly rural and minority communities, are hard-hit by AIDS.


July 13th, 2009 • Quill Archives
SDX Award Winner: Newspaper Washington Correspondence

Washington Correspondence WINNER: DAVID BARSTOW, THE NEW YORK TIMES “Message Machine” Records and interviews show how the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform the analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse — an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks.


July 13th, 2009 • Quill Archives
SDX Award Winner: Newspaper Foreign Correspondence

Foreign Correspondence WINNER: CLIFFORD J. LEVY, THE NEW YORK TIMES “Kremlin Rules” In a nine-part series, “Kremlin Rules,” Clifford J. Levy, Moscow bureau chief at The New York Times, documented the lengths to which Russia under Vladimir Putin has smothered political opposition, silenced independent voices and centralized control over large swaths of the economy.


July 13th, 2009 • Quill Archives
SDX Award Winner: General Column Writing

General Column Writing WINNER: JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY, MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS The Pentagon says that if you offer more realistic college benefits, too many troops might decide to leave at the end of their enlistments and take advantage of it. And that, they say, would only make it even harder to find and enlist enough recruits to man our wars.


July 13th, 2009 • Quill Archives
SDX Award Winner: Newspaper Sports Column Writing

Sports Column Writing WINNER: SALLY JENKINS, THE WASHINGTON POST Beijing has its splendors: ambrosial pear juice and duck skin in coarse sugar, ancient gnarled cypresses, bending willow trees, palaces with concealed courts, and sprawling districts in which nationalities blend into a worldly sauntering crowd.


July 13th, 2009 • Quill Archives
SDX Award Winners: Newspaper Public Service Circulation

Public Service Circulation (Circulation 100,000+) WINNER: THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH “Test of Convictions” He started with a bowl of lobster bisque and worked his way down the menu at Mitchell’s Steakhouse. Next up was filet mignon wrapped in bacon, a baked potato, french fries, corn and asparagus.


July 13th, 2009 • Quill Archives
SDX Award Winners: Magazine Categories

Magazine Writing WINNER: CHRISTIAN PARENTI, PLAYBOY MAGAZINE “Our Battles Joined” They killed Ajmal on Easter Sunday. I was at home in Brooklyn when it happened. My girlfriend was away, and I had slept in, awaking alone to the peaceful springtime view of the backyards on my block.


July 13th, 2009 • Quill Archives
SDX Award Winners: Photography

Breaking News Photography WINNER: PATRICK FARRELL, THE MIAMI HERALD “A People in Despair: Haiti’s Year Without Mercy” In 2008, The Miami Herald repeatedly dispatched photographer Patrick Farrell to Haiti, which bore the brunt of the Atlantic hurricane season. In fact, he was there the night Hurricane Ike, the fourth storm to hit Haiti in a month, re-flooded the already overwhelmed country, swallowing lives and homes.


July 13th, 2009 • Quill Archives
SDX Award Winners: Editorial Cartoons and Informational Graphics

Editorial Cartooning WINNER: CHRIS BRITT, THE STATE JOURNAL REGISTER “Chris Britt’s cartoons stood out from the field for their fearlessness — always the quintessential job requirement for a political cartoonist,” judges said. “Deploying a variety of structural and compositional methodologies, Britt invariably presents points of view that are simultaneously contrarian and obvious — the latter due to his straightforward approach to building an argument, often with multiple panels.


July 13th, 2009 • Quill Archives
SDX Award Winner: Newsletter Journalism

Public Service in Newsletter Journalism WINNER: INSIDE WASHINGTON PUBLISHERS “EPA Rollback on Drinking Water Protections” One of the untold stories of the Bush administration is its weakening of public health protections in the event of a nuclear attack. This series of exclusive articles uncovered and then detailed the potential impacts of the U.S.


July 13th, 2009 • Quill Archives
SDX Award Winner: Research about Journalism

Research About Journalism WINNER: MINABERE IBELEMA “The African Press, Civic Cynicism, and Democracy” PULBISHED BY PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Whereas the African press had been ambivalent in its support of democracy, it has now decidedly embraced it and is valiantly defending it,” author Minabere Ibelema said.


July 12th, 2009 • Quill Archives
SDX Award Winners: Newspaper Deadline Reporting

Deadline Reporting (Circulation 100,000+) WINNER: METROPOLITAN STAFF, THE NEW YORK TIMES “The Spitzer Scandal” Arguably, it could be considered the deadline story of the year: March 12, 2008, Eliot Spitzer became the first governor of New York in a century to resign in disgrace.


July 12th, 2009 • Quill Archives
SDX Award Winners: Newspaper Non-Deadline Reporting

Non-Deadline Reporting (Circulation 100,000+) WINNER: LUCY MORGAN, ST. PETERSBURG TIMES “Double-Dipping” The loophole was created, as are so many in Tallahassee, on the last night of the legislative session, when few people notice what gets into bills flying through legislative hallways.


July 12th, 2009 • Quill Archives
SDX Award Winners: Newspaper Investigative Reporting

Investigative Reporting (Circulation 100,000+) WINNER: DAVID OLINGER & ERIN EMERY, THE DENVER POST “The Battle Within” In the last six months of his life, Staff Sgt. Mark Waltz tried 23 different prescription medications to relieve the pain of war. He came home from his second tour of Iraq suffering from combat stress, a traumatic brain injury, or TBI, and relentless back pain.


July 9th, 2008 • Quill Archives
Winner: Gene Weingarten,

It was the most astonishing thing I’ve ever seen in Washington,” [passerby Stacy] Furukama says. “Joshua Bell was standing there playing at rush hour, and people were not stopping, and not even looking, and were flipping quarters at him! Quarters! I wouldn’t do that to anybody.


July 9th, 2008 • Quill Archives
Winner: Steve Kroft, Ira Rosen, John Solomon & Sumi Agarwal, CBS News-60 Minutes

For 40 years, the FBI relied upon a forensic science called bullet-lead analysis. Based on the belief that the lead in bullets had unique chemical signatures, it was believed possible to break down and analyze and thus match bullets, not only to a singe batch of ammunition coming out of a factory, but to a single box of bullets.


July 9th, 2008 • Quill Archives
Winner: Jerome Aumente, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey

Newspapers are in the business of story telling, and this book is a story about the newspapers of New Jersey. In a microcosm, the daily and community newspapers of the Garden State present a wonderful opportunity to examine in vivid detail the rich history, the past challenges and the future transformations confronting the newspaper industry both in New Jersey and throughout the United States.


July 9th, 2008 • Quill Archives
Winner: The Associated Press

8:12 a.m. EDT APNewsAlert RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (AP) A party aid says Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was injured in a suicide attack and is now undergoing surgery. 8:29 a.m. EDT APNewsAlert FLASH RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (AP) A party aid and a military official say Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto died following a suicide bombing.


July 9th, 2008 • Quill Archives
Winner: Brian Grow, Keith Epstein, Robert Berner & Geri Smith, Business Week

An exhaustive, yearlong


July 9th, 2008 • Quill Archives
Winner: Debbie Dujanovic & Kelly Just, KSL-TV

This story began as a real estate law article. Home sellers in Utah do not have to disclose whether a house was ever contaminated by meth. The reporters, Debbie Dujanovic and Kelly Just, began knocking on doors to see if homeowners knew their houses might have a dark past.


July 9th, 2008 • Quill Archives
Winner: The Post & Courier

Two-by-two, Charleston firefighters waded through the belly of the burning furniture store. Swirling black smoke choked the air around them and swallowed all light. Sofas, chairs and bedding blocked their path at every turn. Darkness and confusion enveloped the men. As the blaze turned deadly, calls for help crackled over the fire department’s radios.