Project or Series: under 200,000 circulation
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.
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.