- Issues
- News
- Resources
- Awards
- History and Guidelines
- Casey Medalists by Category
- Casey Medalists by Year
- 2012 Casey Medals
- 2011 Casey Medals
- 2010 Casey Medals
- 2009 Casey Medals
- 2008 Casey Medals
- 2007 Casey Medals
- 2006 Casey Medals
- 2005 Casey Medals
- 2004 Casey Medals
- 2002 Casey Medals
- 2001 Casey Medals
- 2000 Casey Medals
- 1999 Casey Medals
- 1998 Casey Medals
- 1997 Casey Medals
- 1996 Casey Medals
- 1995 Casey Medals
- 1994 Casey Medals
- Medal Winners: First Person
- Events
- Community
- About
Project or Series: Under 200,000 circulation
2012 Casey Medals
Winner: "Empty Cradles," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Babies born in Botswana stand a better chance of survival than in some Milwaukee neighborhoods. Through a year long commitment, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel put the issue of infant mortality under the microscope, exploring the causes and consequences of a complex public health crisis. Judges lauded the newspaper for “throwing resources at a problem hidden in plain view, in order to mobilize its community.” They credited reporters for “eloquent writing and enormous skill and compassion in interviews with bereaved young families” and for integrating science, public health, economics, sociology in their reporting. As result of this series, infant mortality is now high on the city’s agenda: Milwaukee’s mayor set a specific goal to reduce infant mortality and the United Way adopted it as a primary funding area.
Runner-Up: "Becoming Katie," Tulsa (Okla.) World
In Oklahoma, where a gay teenager committed suicide after being bullied in school, a brave youth -- born a boy -- asserts her right to live freely as her true female self. Her father, a retired Marine Corps and ROTC teacher, refused to be interviewed; but Katie’s mom rises to the challenge and embraces what’s best for her transgender child’s wellbeing. The judges admired the reporter’s graceful work in conveying the angst of adolescence in a touching story that leaves readers feeling hopeful for this young girl’s future. The story cost the Tulsa World some subscribers, but gave voice to a misunderstood minority.
Honorable Mention: "Between Two Worlds," Chattanooga (Tenn.) Times Free Press
Over two decades, the Guatemalan population in the U.S. Southeast jumped 3,000 percent. This series shined a spotlight on immigration and deportation, through the eyes of young children: those brought here, those left behind, and those returned to their countries of origin by choice or by force. The reporting explores how children raised in the U.S. cope with a transition to life in an impoverished Guatemalan village
Honorable Mention: "Child Sexual Abuse in the Ultra-Orthodox Community," The Jewish Week (New York)
The ultra-Orthodox Jewish community has a long history of handling problems like the sexual abuse of children internally without reporting or cooperating with law enforcement officials. Instead, suspects are subject to a process that involves rabbis, religious tribunals, social workers and community watchdogs. This shadow system ultimately denies justice to victims, casts out whistleblowers and enables perpetrators to continue endangering children. The Jewish Week’s coverage encouraged abuse victims to come forward and spurred mainstream media outlets into action. The judges praised the series for sending a message to ethnic media to be unafraid to air and take on problems in their own communities.
2011 Casey Medals
Winner: "Cradle of Secrets," The Charlotte (N.C.) Observer
This team’s curiosity, tenacity and concern for the welfare of children led to state action to strengthen investigations into the death of children. Journalists at The Observer built their own database by compiling records that cost the newspaper thousands of dollars. Based on their findings, reporters were then left with the grim and unenviable task of interviewing parents who had lost children -- and pressing them for details about what exactly happened to cause the child’s death. The powerful series led to changes in state government and prompted parents to rethink how to best keep their infants safe. The human drama makes the series hard to put down. The quality and utility of the information on safe sleeping makes it a potential lifesaver.
Runner-Up: "Promise Not to Tell," The Wichita (Kan.) Eagle
Incest is an almost impossible story to tell; the mere mention of the word prompts many readers to turn away. Yet this reporter succeeds at something extraordinary. He tells the tragic story of twin girls, both survivors of incest, with their names and photos attached. In doing so, the story succeeds at helping readers better understand the humanity of this crime. Moreover, it led to other victims stepping forward, and the twins themselves became national advocates, appearing on the Oprah Winfrey Show.
Honorable Mention: "Growing Up Indian," Argus Leader (Sioux Falls, S.D.)
The Indian reservations of South Dakota are a day’s drive from Sioux Falls, but they seem worlds away to readers. Reporter Steve Young and photographer Devin Wagner remove that distance by taking readers inside the reservations, chronicling stories of hope and despair in ways too personal for readers to ignore or dismiss. They did all of this amid staff reductions -- at a newspaper with a staff of just nine reporters -- over the course of many months.
2010 Casey Medals
Winner: "Fatal Care," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
This team went beyond the story of one child’s death in foster care to discover that 22 additional children died as a result of systemic neglect. The series features in-depth reporting matched with a strong analysis. The sidebars, graphs, photographs and a review of thousands of records add to the stories’ impact. It’s a series that got results, including a new state law that holds welfare officials accountable for the children under their watch.
Runner-Up: "Omaha in Black and White: Dropouts," Omaha (Neb.) World-Herald
An admirable and exhaustive look at the metastasizing tragedy of high school dropouts in Middle America, especially as riddled by race. By tracing the individual stories of a single class of fourth-graders, the project makes it clear that the dropout rate affects us all, regardless of race, and that we all have a vested interest in reducing it. The community responded with philanthropic efforts and legislative measures to direct more funding to lower-income and non-English-speaking children.
Honorable Mention: "Losing 'Letta," Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Little Rock)
The spare, straightforward writing behind “Losing ’Letta” provides a razor-sharp focus into one haunting question: Why didn’t the community care more when a 12-year-old girl disappeared?
2009 Casey Medals
Winner: "The American Dream: Hanging by a thread," Akron Beacon Journal
Vivid, on-the-ground portraits of real people illustrate the plight of families driven into bankruptcy and other economic hardships with razor sharp clarity. The project gains power from the use of narrative techniques, including scenes and dialogue, to illustrate the struggle of declining wages, rising health care costs, soaring tuition and shrinking retirement funds. An extraordinary undertaking and an innovative approach to making a complicated story into one that brims with insight and humanity.
Runner-Up: "Section 8: Subsidizing suburbia," The Cincinnati Enquirer
The Cincinnati Enquirer series should be required reading for journalists on how to make a policy story come to life. This examination of Section 8 housing explores not only the history and the data, but also the emotional and social impact on thousands of families in several Cincinnati neighborhoods. It’s an honest depiction of how things can go wrong even when a federal program is working.
Honorable Mention: "Crossing the Line: Abuse in Hawai’i homes," The Honolulu Advertiser
This hard-hitting, groundbreaking project starts with a staggering statistic – a 64 percent drop in reports of domestic abuse in the last decade – and builds a compelling, sound case for how distrust in a broken system has caused violence to go unreported. Data, narrative reporting and even a victim’s posthumous diary vividly illustrate the failings of police, courts and social services. Furthermore, the project’s inclusion of resources for abuse victims translated into10 languages demonstrates the paper’s commitment to its diverse readership.
Honorable Mention: "Children of Poverty" The Buffalo News
The Buffalo News staff dug into one of the most difficult and troubling weaknesses of the world’s richest nation: its inability to reduce poverty. By focusing on children, this comprehensive project paints a sobering portrait of the unfair scope and ravages of impoverishment, particularly in the areas of health and education.
2008 Casey Medals
Winner: "Broken Trust," Sarasota Herald-Tribune
The Sarasota Herald-Tribune series on abusive teachers has the heft, sweep and results of a top-notch project. The team showed superb resourcefulness by creating its own database, and the paper displayed an admirable commitment to comprehensive watchdog reporting. The paper documents not only painful anecdotal material that would fill even the most hardened reader with indignant rage, it also provides the public with access to resources for follow-up research.
Runner-Up: "State of Decay: West Virginia's oral health crisis," The Charleston Gazette
The series about West Virginia’s dental health crisis depicted viscerally the extremes of human suffering and endurance, and the simplicity of a solution that should be readily available. With an ingenious use of the federal Medicaid database, Eric Eyre reveals a startling fact of life for many West Virginians and offers a reflection of poverty.
Honorable Mention: "Hidden Violations," Small Newspaper Group
This series represents some of the best attributes of our craft's finest practitioners: It showed relentless, pick-ax digging for information and painted a nightmarish picture of a busted bureaucracy that allowed troubled teachers to keep their jobs. This watchdog project smacked some slovenly legislators between the eyes and into action.
2007 Casey Medals
Winner: "Land of Opportunity," The Roanoke Times
Note: This piece won the Project/Series 75,000-199,999 category, which has since been merged with the Project/Series under 75,000 category to form the Project/Series under 200,000 circulation category.
With the national immigration debate as her springboard, reporter Beth Macy expertly hones in on Hispanic immigrants opening Mexican restaurants, working the fields, hanging drywall and filling classrooms in southwestern Virginia’s Roanoke Valley. She presents many faces and dimensions of a growing population that is still largely invisible in the United States yet bound – by relationships, remittances and dreams – to homelands far away.
Winner: "Lethal Lapses," Belleville News-Democrat
This piece won the Project/Series under 75,000 category, which has since been merged with the Project/Series 75,000-199,999 category to form the Project/Series under 200,000 circulation category.
Through meticulous reporting, the reporters documented how Illinois’ Department of Children and Family Services mishandled cases involving 53 children who died in its care between 1998 and 2005. Reporters demonstrated great enterprise – scrutinizing Social Security Administration death records, coroner and police reports, and countless other materials – to connect the dots and identify the child victims. They got beyond confidentiality laws that too often leave the state's most vulnerable wards insufficiently protected and unknown even in death
Runner-Up: "Lessons in Waste," The Bergen Record
This piece was the runner-up in the Project/Series 75,000-199,999 category, which has since been merged with the Project/Series under 75,000 category to form the Project/Series under 200,000 circulation category.
A four-month investigation into fraud and waste in New Jersey’s preschool program – the most ambitious and expensive in the nation – demonstrates masterful dissection of records, crowned with skilled storytelling.
Runner-Up: "A Future in the Fields," The Record (Stockton)
This piece was the runner-up in the Project/Series under 75,000 category, which has since been merged with the Project/Series 75,000-199,999 category to form the Project/Series under 200,000 circulation category.
The series explores the benefits and barriers in schooling nearly 11,000 children of migrant farm laborers in San Joaquin County. It raises key questions and provides some solutions about how to stabilize children’s lives and ensure education.
Honorable Mention: "Pain & Fire," Des Moines Register
This piece was an honorable mention in the Project/Series 75,000-199,999 category, which has since been merged with the Project/Series under 75,000 category to form the Project/Series under 200,000 circulation category.
The gripping narrative shows how generations of sexual abuse sparked a teenage girl’s rage and desire for revenge.
Honorable Mention: "A Life in the Balance," Seattle Post-Intelligencer
This piece was an honorable mention in the Project/Series 75,000-199,999 category, which has since been merged with the Project/Series under 75,000 category to form the Project/Series under 200,000 circulation category.
Vivid storytelling and a seven-part cliffhanger format underscore the drama that unfolds when a commercial fishing-boat accident threatens the life of Rose Bard and her unborn child.
Honorable Mention: "Motherhood Behind Bars," The Post-Crescent
This piece was an honorable mention in the Project/Series under 75,000 category, which has since been merged with the Project/Series 75,000-199,999 category to form the Project/Series under 200,000 circulation category.
The series presents a fresh perspective on the plight of women prisoners by disclosing the alarming use of shackling during childbirth; Wisconsin subsequently ended the practice.
Honorable Mention: "Secret Sorrow," The Post-Star
This piece was an honorable mention in the Project/Series under 75,000 category, which has since been merged with the Project/Series 75,000-199,999 category to form the Project/Series under 200,000 circulation category.
With stories of personal tragedy at its core, The Post-Star's project explores the impact of suicide on family and community; it provides a public service by compiling resource information and providing a forum for discussion.
2006 Casey Medals
Winner: "Born to Die," The Commercial Appeal (Memphis)
“Born to Die” is classic journalism. The newspaper identified a local problem of national importance: Memphis was home to the worst infant mortality rate in the nation, and many of those dying were babies of color. The reporting was terrific, powered by sharp details; the writing was spare and direct. The writer got at the root causes, found a creative way to bring it home not only to Memphis, but to a specific community and made it difficult for readers to turn away.
Winner: "Standing at the Crossroads," Lincoln (Neb.) Journal Star
Deep, powerful reporting and writing about the ravages of alcohol at the Pine Ridge reservation and how the disease has been tearing apart the Lakota tribe. The reporters placed a lot of their attention on the young generation struggling to succeed. This series could have devolved into stereotypes, but the reporters always treated the reservation residents with dignity, and approached them as vulnerable human beings.
Runner-Up: "Deadly Streets," The News Journal (Wilmington, Del.)
A deeply reported portrait of a neighborhood under siege by violent drug dealers, the project has resulted in greater community involvement and greater state and government resources and changed the way local police fight drug traffickers.
Runner-Up: "Don't Forget Us: Students on the Margins," The Christian Science Monitor
This series about students on the margins -- who are homeless, whose families are migrant workers, or who live in foster care -- is pure testimony that it’s worth spending the resources to really tell the story of invisible children, and to tell it well.
Honorable Mention: "The Hidden Costs of Tenure," Small Newspaper Group (Springfield, Ill.)
The reporter’s massive review of records revealed that poor teachers with tenure are largely out of reach for discipline or termination. As a result, Illinois legislators and school officials are promising reform.
Honorable Mention: "An Unlikely Refuge," The Roanoke (Va.) Times
This engaging, well-written story of African refugees who fled genocide to start new lives in Virginia took reporting skill and the newspaper's commitment to humanize the newcomers.
2005 Casey Medals
Winner: "Frayed Lifeline," The Wall Street Journal
Ansberry examines long-term home care for developmentally disabled adults through an intimate profile of an 84-year-old man and his 49-year-old autistic son; a thorough look at disparities in state and local spending on the families; and an in-depth piece about how deinstitutionalizing disabled patients has impacted paid caregivers. The stories inspire and alarm with their original, probing look at a largely hidden population. They bring to mind the phrase "tender mercies."
Runner-Up: "The New Deal," The Los Angeles Times
Gosselin uses painstaking reporting and elegant writing to explain how most families lead more volatile economic lives than reflected by conventional measures.
Honorable Mention: "No Child Left Behind," Chicago Tribune
By focusing on how the federal No Child Left Behind law affects one child, Banchero lifts the story from the routine to the exceptional and humanizes the complex, controversial topic.
2005 Casey Medals
Winner: "Our Dead Children," Omaha World-Herald
The reporters take an old subject and create a riveting account of one child's deadly journey through a child welfare system that repeatedly failed her. After the newspaper went to court to obtain records, the reporters compiled a series filled with remarkable detail and evocative writing.
Winner: "Lost Boys of Flathead," The Missoulian
After two 11-year-old boys drank themselves to death on the Flathead Indian Reservation outside Ronan, Mont., Moore spent four months reporting and writing the complex story behind the tragedy. The weeklong series is a powerful, deeply nuanced examination of the lives of Flathead Indian children and the destruction alcohol leaves in its wake -- narrative storytelling at its best.
Runner-Up: "Smuggling Children," Arizona Daily Star
Marizco writes about a mother who paid to have her two young sons smuggled across the U.S.-Mexican border. Amazing storytelling and access to a shadow world set this series apart.
Runner-Up: "Disability City, USA," Herald News (West Paterson, N.J.)
Through resourceful reporting, Feibel took a statistical nugget about high disability rates among working-age people and turned it into a masterful piece of lively policy analysis.
Honorable Mention: "Preschools Squander Tax Dollars," The Record (Hackensack, N.J.)
The reporters effectively use a time-honored "follow the money" formula to find out how New Jersey was spending -- and misspending -- tax dollars on preschool programs.
2004 Casey Medals
Winner: "Closing Costs: School consolidation in West Virginia," The Charleston Gazette
A decade ago, West Virginia officials pushed through a massive school consolidation plan, resulting in the closing of hundreds of rural schools. Eyre and Finn focus on the overlooked sufferers: children who endure long and arduous bus rides that grossly violate state guidelines. The reporters provide a thorough look at a scandalous situation far below the national radar and, in the best traditions of journalism, give voice to a community’s most vulnerable people.
Winner: "Education on the Brink: Separate and Unequal," Oakland Tribune (Calif.)
The series offers a disquieting account of how economic and racial segregation contribute to educational inequalities in California’s public schools. A familiar topic comes alive through vivid reporting and shows how differences large and small – from spending on teacher salaries and textbooks to cleanup of graffiti-covered walls – affect students and their education.
Runner-Up: "The Black Belt: Alabama's Third World," The Birmingham News
This ambitious, comprehensive series examines the startling chasm that divides Alabama’s Black Belt – a poverty-stricken region named for its dark, rich soil – from more affluent counties.
Runner-Up: "The Dominic Files," Springfield News-Leader (Mo.)
Bauer untangles the dysfunction of a child welfare system that left 2-year-old Dominic James in the care of a foster father who fatally abused him.
Honorable Mention: "The Truth Dies with Them," Seattle-Post Intelligencer
Teichroeb aggressively reports how Washington’s child homicide rate failed to include some abuse and neglect deaths.
Honorable Mention: "Castaway Children: Hidden faces of poverty," Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram
Walsh uncovers horrific enclaves of poverty in Maine’s rural communities.
Honorable Mention: "One in Every Classroom," Post Register (Idaho Falls, Idaho)
The series examines efforts to care for seriously emotionally disturbed children by families, state schools and the mental health system.
about this award
The Casey Medals for Meritorious Journalism recognize exemplary reporting on children and families in the U.S. More than 4,500 journalists have competed for Casey Medals since 1994.