May 15, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Simone Greggs
(202) 463-7575 ext. 234
greggs@rfkmemorial.org

40th Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Journalism Awards Announced

Washington, D.C. – Journalists in nine professional and student categories have been selected for the 40th Annual Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards.

All recipients of the 40th Annual Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards will be honored at a ceremony on Tuesday, May 27, 2008 at 6:30 PM at the Newseum in Washington, DC.

Grand Prize honors go to domestic print winners Dana Priest and Anne Hull of The Washington Post for the series “The Other Walter Reed”. “The Other Walter Reed” is a powerful investigative series that exposed the shockingly poor treatment of wounded Iraq War veterans at the premiere U.S. military hospital, located in the nation’s capital. The series went on to examine the pervasive nature of the problem across the country. With casualty lists continuing to grow, the Post’s stories forced the nation and its leaders to acknowledge the creation of a new class of disadvantaged Americans-wounded war veterans. The series describes the tragic result of tens of thousand of American veterans who suffer physically and psychologically wounds and the social and economic impact on their families.

The RFK Print Judges write: “Dana Priest and Anne Hull demonstrated courage and conviction in their intrepid and unflinching reporting on powerful institutions like the U.S. Army and the Defense Department.” The Walter Reed series had an immediate and powerful impact. Top Army officials lost their jobs and according to a recent GAO report, conditions at Walter Reed and the treatment of veterans have improved, though the situation is far from perfect.

Other winners of the 40th Annual RFK Journalism Awards include:

International Print Winner: “Zimbabwe’s Pain” by Robyn Dixon of The Los Angeles Times describes the tragedy of Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe’s dictatorship. She concealed her mission to get into the country four times and repeatedly risked her safety in moving from place to place. The RFK Print Judges agreed that “Dixon showed truly extraordinary courage in reporting and paints a deeply moving and comprehensive portrait of a country descending into a catastrophic nightmare”.

Domestic Photography Winner: “The Bottom Line” by Mona Reeder of The Dallas Morning News reveals, through words and images, the shameful state of Society’s “forgotten people”. She exposes the frayed social safety net in Texas, which could be anywhere in 2008 America.

The project arose from years of work documenting the plight of the homeless and disadvantaged and of noting the indifference of many of her fellow Texans to it. In 2005, a social worker handed Mona some data that showed how poorly the state was doing. Director of Photography Leslie White of The Dallas Morning News says Mona strove to “move Texans to ponder the human costs of our public policy priorities”.

International Photography: “Lost Daughters: Sex Selection in India” by Mary F. Calvert of The Washington Times documents an ongoing issue affecting millions of people throughout Africa, Asia and the Middle East: The social perception that females are “worth” less than males, and the extremes to which families go to have boys and get rid of girls. Through her images Mary shows us the difficulties that women face in India, even before birth, such as fetal sex selection, government-financed abortion of female fetuses and abandonment after birth. But her work doesn’t stop there; she follows women through their life cycle and shows the consequences of this sexist ideology.

With photographs of schools crowded with boys, orphanages full of girls abandoned by their parents and potential bridegrooms unable to find brides she depicts the disproportionate ratio of men to women in contemporary India. The RFK Photography judges note “Mary’s access to some private and difficult situations shows her dedication and commitment to this issue”.

Domestic Radio Winner: “Stuck and Suicidal in a Post-Katrina Trailer Park” by Alix Spiegel of National Public Radio is about a small post-Katrina trailer park deep in the Mississippi woods, thirty minutes by car to the closest town. At the time of the reporting one hundred families had lived in the park for close to two years. This is a story about how the government’s solution to the housing crisis in the wake of Katrina further undermined the mental health of these victims of the storm, pushing them to the brink of insanity and in some cases beyond.

Domestic Television Winner: “Evidence of Injustice” by Steve Kroft and Ira Rosen of CBS News 60 Minutes along with a team of the Washington Post led by John Solomon reviewed criminal cases across the country to identify those in which “bullet lead analysis 9” a method by which the analysis of the lead in bullets is used to identify their origin was used to obtain convictions. The team learned that the FBI had been using this type of evidence to obtain convictions for 40 years, and that even after the National Academy of Science found that this method was often wrong, or misleading, the Agency did nothing to identify those cases in which it had been used. The Agency also failed to notify those affected (many of whom were still in prison), that they might have been convicted based on faulty evidence, and that a miscarriage of justice might have occurred.

The RFK Television judges agreed that the “work exemplified an increasingly rare quality in journalism today: courage in reporting”. The judges also noted that this lengthy commitment of resources on the part of the producers and the Washington Post to “expose wrong doing by the U.S. government judicial system is to be commended and this television report could potentially lead to hundreds of unjust convictions being appealed and reversed”.

International Television Winner: “Uganda’s Silent War” by Kira Kay and Jason Maloney of PBS News Hour and HDNet World Report exposes the stories of the students of the Laroo School for War Affected Children which serves as the introduction to a generation of Ugandan children who have experienced nothing more than sacrifice and pain at the hands of brutal warlord Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army. The images of the devastation the LRA has caused would be compelling enough to raise awareness about this deadly conflict, but Kay and Maloney moved beyond a cursory introduction and portrayed the social, political and geographic factors at play in the fragile peace process underway.

The judges selected “Uganda’s Silent War” for the RFK Journalism Award in International Television because it is “courageous, powerful and important”. Reporters Kira Kay and Jason Maloney traveled to one of the most dangerous places in the world at their own risk to tell a story that no one else is telling. The RFK Television judges write: “their bravery and in-depth reporting produced a series that not only identifies a problem but discusses the solutions”.

Cartoon Winner: Signe Wilkinson’s editorial cartoons from The Daily News were instrumental in moving the issue of violence in disadvantaged neighborhoods and schools to the top of the city’s agenda. Her cartoons offer a “steady drumbeat of funny, moving and shocking images”. The RFK Cartoon Judges write, “Her series attacking gun violence in Philadelphia spared no one and drew complaints from everyone- the hallmark of any good cartoonist”.

College Broadcast Winner: “Breaking Down Barriers” by Rachel Anderson, Megan Carrick, Justin Peterson and Chris Welch of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln focuses on the trouble children around the globe are facing when it comes to education both overseas and in America.

As they produced the documentary, the students worked to gain the trust of the immigrants whose lives and families they chronicled. The students found that people from different cultures, with different beliefs, benefited mutually by working and communicating with each other. In doing so, the students also discovered that people can find better ways to break down barriers of ethnic perception that often divide them.

According to RFK College Judges, “Breaking down Barriers” deserves this years Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Award because of its originality and compelling portrayal of a serious problem in today’s school systems.

High School Print: “Students Show Outstanding Ability” by D. J. Shewmaker of Francis Howell North High School was chosen because of how well-written it was. Jeffrey John of Wright State University writes “I believe the pros at our local metro paper would be challenged to produce an article this good”.

High School Broadcast: “Home is Where the Heart Is” by Brittany Gomes, Mhanivel Moresca, Samuel Balecha, and Laurissa Asuega from Waianae High School introduces viewers to a homeless family of twelve who had been living on the beach until they received temporary tented home by a program called Ohana Ola O Kahumana. The judges write that Home is Where The Heart is “was a very moving piece with substance, character and story development”.