AP News, March 7th, 2007
Newspaper reporters who exposed how 53 children in seven years died after Illinois child-welfare workers made mistakes or ignored their own rules and Atlanta photographers who covered the funeral of Coretta Scott King won top honors Wednesday in the 73rd annual National Headliner Awards.
Broadcasters in Chicago and Minneapolis were also honored with grand awards, the highest prizes given as part of the national journalism contest run by The Press Club of Atlantic City.
The four grand awards, which come with $1,500 prizes, will be presented _ along with dozens of other Headliner Awards _ at a May 19 banquet at the Atlantic City Convention Center.
In garnering the print grand award, the Belleville (Ill.) News-Democrat also won first place in the news series category for "Lethal Lapses," by George Pawlaczyk and Beth Hundsdorfer.
The four-month investigation found mistakes by caseworkers, investigators, supervisors or contracted private workers and their failures to properly assess the dangers faced by the children. The deaths involved children being beaten, burned, smothered, shaken and starved, the newspaper said.
The reporters used a "fresh and tenacious approach to a sadly familiar story. High praise for gaining access to near-impossible-to-get records, as well as crisp, strong writing," the judges wrote.
The staff of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution won the grand award for photography, as well as first place in the photo essay category for images of the funeral for King, the widow of slain civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
"The photos effectively captured the end of an era. The use of black and white made the emotional content of the images even more poignant," the judges said.
The grand award in radio went to the winner of the feature or human interest category, WBEZ-Chicago Public Radio for "Joshua," by Steve Edwards. The report examined the struggle of Rob and Diane Burda of Arlington Heights, Ill., to understand the sudden unexplained death of their 20-month-old son, Joshua.
"The piece captured the heartbreak of losing a young child and not knowing. The use of natural sound from the family's home video gave the piece a special feel. Permitting the parents to tell most of the story was very effective," the judges said.
In television, the grand award went to KARE-TV of Minneapolis for "Kaziah's Compassion" by Boyd Huppert and John Drilling. The story was about a Utah painter, Kaziah Hancock, who has sent about 250 free oil portraits of deceased military personnel to their families.
The judges said, "Boyd Huppert's style of storytelling searches out the seemingly ordinary life stories all around us and raises them to an extraordinary experience."
Two Associated Press photographers won Headliner Awards. Jerusalem-based Oded Balilty won in spot news for "The Power of One," and Milwaukee-based Mike Roemer won in sports photography for "Crowd Pleaser."
In addition to AP, other multiple first-place award winners were:
_The Miami Herald, which had winners in four categories: local interest column, health/medical/science writing, investigative reporting and photography portfolio.
_The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which in addition to the grand award in photography, had winners in the news series and editorial cartoons categories.
_Bloomberg News, which won for sports writing and coverage of a major news event in the print division, as well as for business and consumer reporting in the broadcast division.
_NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams captured three wins: best newscast, coverage of a major news event and feature, sports or human interest story.
_Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader won for spot news and sports photography.
_CNN took first place in two categories: continuing coverage of a major news event and health/science reporting.
_WTHR-TV, of Indianapolis, won for investigative reporting and health/science reporting.
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On the Net:
http://www.nationalheadlinerawards.com/
