Slain Editor Bailey Among George Polk Award Winners

By: Joe Strupp Slain California Newspaper Editor Chauncey Bailey is among the winners of the George Polk Awards for 2007, according to Long Island University, which presents the honors.

Other winners announced Tuesday include Leila Fadel of McClatchy Newspaper's Baghdad bureau and journalists from The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and the Jackson (Miss.) Clarion-Ledger, among others. The blog Talking Points Memo took one of the honors.

The announcement of the awards stated that this year's winners were recognized for "media coverage that
exposed corporate and government misfeasance, revealed the industrial roots of environmental catastrophe and uncovered the abuse of vulnerable populations including children, the elderly and veterans."

"Among the Award recipients is a journalist slain last summer in Oakland, California, who was investigating a local business now linked to his murder," the release stated, referring to Bailey, editor of the weekly Oakland Post, who was killed last August while investigating a local bakery in Oakland, Calif., with criminal ties. "He is the first journalist since 1993 to become a victim of a targeted killing in the United States."

Other winners include:

? The Washington Post reporters Barton D. Gellman and Jo Becker (now at The New York Times) who will share the George Polk Award for Political Reporting.
"Their work substantiated Vice President Dick Cheney's emergence as a singularly decisive, influential, yet behind-the-scenes force in White House policymaking."

? Leila Fadel, Baghdad bureau chief, McClatchy Newspapers, who will be honored with the George Polk Award for Foreign Reporting. "Her work provided a comprehensive array of disturbing, first-hand accounts of violence and conflict by juxtaposing the agonizing plight of families in ethnically torn neighborhoods with the braggadocio of a vengeful insurgent proud of his murderous exploits, and the carnage and sorrow among victims of Iraq's most deadly car bombing in a remote region of the country where few reporters ventured."

? The Wall Street Journal's Shai Oster, who will be presented with the George Polk Award for Environmental Reporting. "His efforts disclosed the unforeseen environmental consequences caused by China's attempts to harness the raging waters of the Yangtze River for hydropower to meet the ever-increasing energy needs of industrialization."

? Charles A. Duhigg of The New York Times, who will receive the George Polk Award for Medical Reporting.
"His ongoing series, which began in December of 2006, paired gut-wrenching examples with detailed analyses, disclosing how commercial entities and individuals abused the elderly, depleting their finances and often compromising their level of care. His reports triggered swift and far-reaching investigations by Congress, leading to changes in the laws protecting this vulnerable group, as well as industry accountability and promises to reform."

? Joshua M. Marshall, editor and publisher of Talking Points Memo, who wins The Polk Award for Legal Reporting.
"His site, www.talkingpointsmemo.com, led the news media coverage of the politically motivated dismissals of United States attorneys across the country. Noting a similarity between firings in Arkansas and California, Marshall (with staff reporter-bloggers Paul Kiel and Justin Rood) connected the dots and found a pattern of federal prosecutors being forced from office for failing to do the Bush Administration's bidding."

? The Chicago Tribune, which will receive the George Polk Award for Consumer Reporting. "The newspaper's accounts of children suffering injury and death from exposure to dangerously designed magnetic building sets, lead-tainted toys and defective cribs led to massive product recalls and heightened public awareness of the dangers posed by these widely sold items."

? The Charlotte (N.C.) Observer, which will win the George Polk Award for Economic Reporting for a yearlong series on the community's high rate of housing foreclosures.
"The articles exposed questionable practices by one of the nation's largest homebuilders, prompting multiple federal and state investigations, including a federal criminal investigation and an inquiry by the Securities and Exchange Commission."

? Jerry Mitchell of the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., who wins the George Polk Award for State Reporting. "Mitchell and the newspaper uncovered how disease outbreaks and health problems went unreported by the Mississippi State Department of Health, including a statewide upsurge in tuberculosis, increased syphilis infections and a skyrocketing infant mortality rate - the nation's highest."

? John McPhee, the author, essayist and Princeton University professor, who won the George Polk Career Award. "McPhee, who turns 77 in March, has been a staff writer with The New Yorker since 1965 and is considered one of the pioneers of creative nonfiction. He has left an indelible mark on American journalism during his nearly half-century career."

? Senior foreign correspondent Jim Sciutto, producer Angus Hines and cameraman/ producer Tom Murphy, for "ABC World News with Charles Gibson," who will share the George Polk Award for Television Reporting.

"Last fall, Sciutto and the team were able to penetrate Myanmar's news blackout during the government's crackdown on peaceful demonstrations involving students and Buddhist monks, which were held to protest a decision to sharply raise fuel prices. During two forays into Myanmar, also known as Burma, the journalists posed as tourists, secretly transmitting video evidence of government repression, sometimes recording with cell-phone cameras while evading security forces."

? The George Polk Book Award will be presented to Jeremy Scahill, author of "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army," (published by Nation Books, a co-publishing venture between The Nation Institute and the Perseus Books Group). "Scahill's work exposed killings, human rights violations and misconduct by the firm's personnel and revealed the U.S. government's growing reliance on this 'shadow army.' His reporting and Congressional testimony helped propel legislation that would ban U.S. government security contracts with Blackwater and other private military companies."

? Freelance writer Joshua A. Kors, who will receive the George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting, "His two-part series 'Thanks For Nothing,' in The Nation, investigated the story of Jon Town, a former U.S. Army specialist who suffered severe hearing loss, memory problems and depression from exposure to a 107-millimeter rocket explosion in Iraq. Town received a purple heart but later was refused disability or medical benefits based on the Army's claim that he had a pre-existing personality disorder."

? The George Polk Award for Financial Reporting will go to Edward Chancellor for his article, "Ponzi Nation," published in Institutional Investor magazine. "Chancellor sounded the alarm months before the financial markets began their roller coaster ride south, warning that excessive risk-taking and interconnected investments - fueled by sub-prime mortgages and the activities of lightly regulated hedge funds - could cause calamity for world economies."

The Awards will be presented at a luncheon honoring the winners at the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan on Thursday, April 17, 2008. The George Polk Awards Web site is at: www.liu.edu/polk.
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