Project or Series: Under 200,000 circulation

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.

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.

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

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."

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.

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.