Winners of Livingston Awards for Young Journalists Announced

By: E&P Staff The Livingston Awards for Young Journalists, which honor journalists under the age of 35 in local, national and international reporting, were announced today. The $10,000 prizes are the largest all-media, general-reporting prizes in the country. An additional $5,000 award named for Richard M. Clurman, is given to senior professionals who are honored for their skills as on-the-job mentors.

The 2005 winners are:

* Local reporting. Peter Zuckerman, 26, of the (Idaho Falls, ID) Post Register, for "Scout's Honor," a series about the Boy Scouts program in eastern Idaho and a decade-long problem with child molesters.

* National reporting. Robin Mejia, 32, freelance journalist, for "Reasonable Doubt: Can Crime Labs Be Trusted?" The report aired on "CNN Reports" and demonstrated the fallibility of forensic science in the evaluation of ballistics, fingerprint and DNA evidence, leading to wrongful criminal convictions.

* International reporting. Edward Wong, 33, of The New York Times, for "The Struggle for Iraq," a series that examined the challenges facing Iraq as the three distinct groups of Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis struggle for influence in the future of that country.

* The Richard M. Clurman Award went to Eugene L. Roberts, Jr., professor, Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland. Before joining the faculty, Roberts spent 40 years as a newspaperman. He led The New York Times coverage of the civil rights movement in the South, served as its chief Vietnam War correspondent and later was national and managing editor. In 1972 Roberts became the executive editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer, and in the subsequent 18 years led that newspaper to national prominence and its staff to 17 Pulitzer Prizes.