'NY Times,' 'LA Times' Among Sidney Hillman Award Winners

By: Joe Strupp Charles Duhigg of The New York Times took home the newspaper category prize in the Sidney Hillman Foundation Journalism Awards, which honor journalism that explores social issues and economic justice.

Duhigg won for his ?Golden Opportunities? series, which spotlights businesses and investors who profit from older Americans.

Also among newspaper honorees is Luis Sinco of the Los Angeles Times, whose story, ?The Marlboro Marine: Two lives blurred together by a photo,? won for photojournalism. The piece described how Sinco had shot the famed 2004 photo of a U.S. Marine in Iraq and later sparked a friendship with the soldier.

Other winners of the Sidney Hillman awards in each media category include:

? Books: Robert Kuttner, The Squandering of America: How the Failure of Our Politics Undermines Our Prosperity, Knopf Publishing Group.

? Magazines: Ray Ring, ?Death in the Energy Fields,? High Country News.

? Broadcast: Bill Moyers and Kathy Hughes, ?Buying The War,? Bill Moyers Journal.

? Blogs: ThinkProgress.org, Faiz Shakir and Amanda Terkel, Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Each winner receives travel to the awards ceremony on May 27 in New York. At the event, each also will receive a statuette and a $5,000 prize.

The Sidney Hillman Foundation has been giving the awards since 1950 to "journalists whose work explores and exposes the pertinent issues of our time, providing the evidence and inspiration to spur action and movement toward a more just society," a release stated.

The foundation is named for Sidney Hillman, the founding president of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, who "pioneered many of the most progressive aspects of the American labor movement. Under his leadership, the union opened a labor bank so that workers? money would help them rather than support business interests; it built the first union-sponsored cooperative housing; and it created the first unemployment insurance program," the release said.