MIlitary Reporters and Editors Announce Prize Winners

By: Joe Strupp A group of Dayton Daily News reporters won the top prize in the 2005 Military Reporters and Editors writing awards for a series of reports on the Iraq war.

The $2,000 Joseph L. Galloway Award for Distinguished Journalism went to scribes Jim DeBrosse, Russell Carollo, Larry Kaplow, Ken McCall, Mehul Srivastava, and Mike Wagner of the Daily News, according to the release first posted on the Romenesko site. The reporters spent 10 months on the stories, which were entitled "The Toll of War" and focused on non-combat deaths of soldiers. Those included suicides of soldiers returning from combat duty, and civil claims filed by Iraqi citizens against the U.S. military.

"The Dayton Daily News reporting team undertook three investigate projects of incredible breadth and depth to reveal the little-known costs of war on returning soldiers, their families and others," Ellen Shearer, assistant dean and William F. Thomas Professor of Journalism at the Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University, said in the release. She judged the awards along with Associate Professor David Nelson of Medill.

Nelson offered praise to the paper for "uncovering the high incidence of suicides among soldiers who had served in Iraq as well as detailing the problems in how the military handles non-combat deaths," the announcement said. "Especially important was the series on how little Iraqis receive when filing civil claims against the U.S. -- stirring further animosity toward American policy."

The winners of the Galloway Award, as well as the other MRE writing awards, will be honored at a luncheon on Oct. 21 as part of the 2005 MRE convention.

The other winners are:

Print category, overseas coverage
(circulation greater than 100,000):
Dexter Filkins, The New York Times

Distinguished Reporting:
Greg Jaffe, The Wall Street Journal
Lee Hill Kavanaugh, The Kansas City Star.

Print category, overseas coverage
(circulation less than 100,000):
Steve Liewer, Stars and Stripes.

Print category, domestic coverage
(circulation greater than 100,000):
Miles Moffeit, Arthur Kane, Amy Herdy, and Marsha Austin, The Denver Post.

Distinguished Reporting:
Sharon Cohen and Pauline Arrillaga, The Associated Press
Scott Huddleston, San Antonio Express-News
Nick Trougakos, The Oklahoman, Oklahoma City, Okla.

Print category, domestic coverage
(circulation less than 100,000):
Kevin Graman, The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Wash.

Distinguished Reporting:
Joe Pappalardo, National Defense

Photography category
circulation greater than 100,000:
Dean Hoffmeyer, Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch
Jon Fletcher, The Florida Times-Union, Jacksonville, Fla.

Distinguished photography:
Photo team, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Little Rock, Ark.

Photography category
circulation less than 100,000
Terry Boyd, Stars and Stripes