Past George Polk Award Winners
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2023 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting: The staff of The New York Times for coverage of the war between Israel and Hamas.
National Reporting: Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott, Alex Mierjeski, Brett Murphy and the staff of ProPublica for documenting the questionable ethics of Supreme Court justices.
Local Reporting: Jesse Coburn of Streetsblog NYC for “Ghost Tags: InsideNew York City’s Black Market for Temporary License Plates,"
State Reporting: Chris Osher and Julia Cardi of The Gazette of ColoradoSprings for exposing the deadly consequences of a broken family court system.
Business Reporting: The staff of Reuters for reports on nefariouspractices at companies owned by multi-billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk.
Medical Reporting: Shared by Anna Werner of CBS News and Brett Kelman, Fred Schulte, Holly K. Hacker and Daniel Chang of KFF Health News for “When Medical Devices Malfunction“ and Michael D. Sallah, Michael Korsh and Evan Robinson-Johnson of the Pittsburgh Post- Gazette and Debbie Cenziper of ProPublica for “With Every Breath.”
Justice Reporting: Brian Howey for a Los Angeles Times article and a podcast aired by Reveal, The Center for Investigative Reporting detailing an insidious approach to dealing with relatives of individuals killed by police.
Magazine Reporting: Luke Mogelson of the New Yorker for “Two Weeks at the Front in Ukraine.”
Photojournalism: Samar Abu Elouf and Yousef Masoud of The New York Times for chronicling Israel’s bombardment and invasion of Gaza.
Podcast: Meribah Knight of WPLN Nashville, Ken Armstrong of ProPublica and Daniel Guillemette of Serial Productions, The New York Times for “The Kids of Rutherford County.”
Television Reporting: VICE News correspondent Julia Steers andproducer Amel Guettatfi for “Inside Wagner.”
Commentary: Masha Gessen for her New Yorker essay “In the Shadowof the Holocaust.”
Sydney Schanberg Prize: Jason Motlagh of Rolling Stone for “This Will End inBlood and Ashes.”
2022 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting: The staff of The New York Times for incisive coverage of the war in Ukraine.
War Reporting: Mstyslav Chernov, Evgeniy Maloletka, Vasilisa Stepanenko and Lori Hinnant of the Associated Press for horrific narratives and images of the Russian siege of Mariupol.
National Reporting: Josh Gerstein, Alex Ward, Peter Canellos and the staff of Politico for revealing a draft of the Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade and the politics behind it.
Local Reporting: John Archibald, Ashley Remkus and Ramsey Archibald of the website AL.com for exposing police tactics that bilked poor residents of a small town in Alabama.
State Reporting: Joshua Schneyer, Mica Rosenberg and Kristina Cooke of Reuters for “Undocumented and Underage,” a series on migrant children working in auto parts factories and slaughterhouses in Alabama.
Health Reporting: Kendall Taggart, John Templon, Anthony Cormier and Jason Leopold of BuzzFeed News for “Profit, Pain, and Private Equity,” a series demonstrating how care diminished after a private equity firm purchased homes for people with severe disabilities.
Financial Reporting: Ian Allison and Tracy Wang of CoinDesk for exposing suspicious dealings that brought a young entrepreneur and his supposed $32 billion crypto currency empire crashing down.
Environmental Reporting: Terrence McCoy of The Washington Post for “The Amazon, Undone,” a series examining the exploitation of a vital global resource nearing irreparable destruction.
Education Reporting: Eliza Shapiro and Brian M. Rosenthal of The New York Times for detailing New York yeshivas’ failure to provide 50,000 boys with a basic education despite public funding.
Justice Reporting: Brett Murphy of ProPublica for “Words of Conviction,” which debunked use of pseudo-scientific testimony from supposed experts to convict defendants.
Political Reporting: Sarah Blaskey, Nicholas Nehamas, Ana Ceballos, Mary Ellen Klas and the staff of the Miami Herald for exposing a cruel calculus behind refugee flights from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard.
Foreign Television Reporting: Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Kavitha Chekuru and Laila Al-Arian of Al Jazeera English for “The Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh,” establishing responsibility for the shooting death of a reporter.
National Television Reporting: Shimon Prokupecz and crew, CNN, for groundbreaking coverage of the failed law enforcement response to a lethal school shooting in Texas.
Photojournalism: Lynsey Addario of The New York Times for an iconic photo of the bodies of a refugee family moments after a Russian mortar round struck them as they sought to flee Ukraine.
Special Award: Theo Baker of The Stanford Daily for uncovering allegations that the university president’s pioneering neuroscience research was supported in part by manipulated imagery.
Sydney Schanberg Prize: Alex Perry of Outside Magazine for a harrowing account of an ISIS attack in northern Mozambique that left an estimated 837 dead.
2021 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting: Maria Abi-Habib, Frances Robles and the staff of The New York Times for defying danger to connect the assassination of Haitian president Jovenel Moïse to drug dealers he threatened to expose.
National Reporting: The staff of the Washington Post for “The Attack, a series that substantiated systematic security failures in advance of the January 6 attack on the U. S. Capitol.
Local Reporting: Corey G. Johnson. Rebecca Woolington and Eli Murray of the Tampa Bay Times for revealing that dangerous conditions at a lead-smelting factory exposed workers to severe illness.
State Reporting: Carol Marbin Miller and Daniel Chang of the Miami Herald in partnership with ProPublic.a for “Birth & Betrayal,” a series exposing misuse of a fund to care for children severely disabled by birth-related brain injuries in Florida
International Reporting: Ian Urbina of The New Yorker for assuming significant risk to establish that the European Union employed Libyans to intercept African migrants at sea and hold them in secret prisons
Medical Reporting: Adam Feuerstein, Matthew Herper and Damian Garde of STAT for exposing a secret lobbying campaign that convinced the FDA to approve a costly new Alzheimer’s drug despite its questionable efficacy.
Business Reporting: Jeff Horwitz and the Wall Street Journal staff for “Facebook Files,” documenting a profits-over-people approach that promoted divisiveness and extremism, protected drug cartels and human traffickers and triggered teenage anxiety and depression.
Environmental Reporting: David Muir, Almin Karamehmedovic and Esther Castillejo of ABC News for “The Children of Climate Change,” which traced a devastating famine in drought-stricken Madagascar to global warming.
Magazine Reporting: Sarah Stillman of The New Yorker for “The Migrant Workers Who Follow Climate Disasters,” exposing abusive conditions in the little-known multi-billion-dollar disaster recovery industry
Military Reporting: Azmat Khan, Dave Philipps, Eric Schmitt and The New York Times staff for linking intelligence failure and human error to previously unreported or understated civilian casualties resulting from U.S. overseas air strikes.
Political Reporting: Linda So, Jason Szep and the Reuters staff for authenticating efforts by acolytes of Donald Trump to threaten and vilify poll workers and election officials in 16 states.
Technology Reporting: The Forbidden Stories Network, the Washington Post and Guardian U.S., for “The Pegasus Project,” which revealed that an Israeli firm’s spyware was used to tap the phones of activists, journalists, and business and political leaders across the globe.
Local Television Reporting: Dave Biscobing of KNXV-TV in Phoenix for “Politically Charged,” a series revealing that police and prosecutors testified about a street gang they invented to gain grand jury authorization for surveillance and prosecution of protestors.
National Television Reporting: A.C.Thompson of ProPublica, PBS Frontline and the Berkeley Investigative Reporting Program, for “American Insurrection,” an examination of far-right extremist activity across the U.S.
Foreign Television Reporting: Clarissa Ward of CNN and her crew for real-time coverage of the rapid rise of the Taliban as U.S. forces withdrew from Afghanistan.
2020 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting: David Culver, Yong Xiong and Natalie Thomas of CNN for prescient early reporting on a mysterious virus in Wuhan, China.
National Reporting: Luke Mogelson of The New Yorker for “American Uprising,” firsthand accounts of domestic upheaval that turned violent.
Local Reporting: Staff of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune for deadline coverage that helped turn the death of George Floyd into a national story.
Health Reporting: Michael Grabell, Bernice Yeung and the staff of ProPublica for two series examining the Covid-19 pandemic’s disproportionate impact on Black Americans and meatpacking workers.
Medical Reporting: Dan Diamond of Politico for multiple accounts of Trump Administration interference with the Centers for Disease Control and other sources of medical and scientific expertise on the Covid-19 pandemic.
Science Reporting: Ed Yong of The Atlantic for clear and insightful analysis of factors behind the spread of Covid-19 and failed efforts to bring it under control.
Public Service: Helen Branswell of STAT for timely, astute and relentless coverage of all aspects of the Covid-19 pandemic that became must reading for the medical community and the general public.
Oral History: Eli Saslow of The Washington Post for 25 compelling personal narratives based on extensive interviews of individuals deeply affected by the Covid-19 virus.Political Reporting: Stephanie McCrummen of The Washington Post for deftly capturing Georgia’s shifting political winds in three perceptive profiles.
Business Reporting: Ryan Mac and Craig Silverman of BuzzFeed for a series showing how Facebook exposed the public to disinformation, fraud and violence.
Financial Reporting: Russ Buettner, Susanne Craig and Mike McIntire of The New York Times for unearthing and analyzing questionable income tax activity President Donald Trump went to great lengths to hide from public view.
Education Reporting: Robert Lee and Tristan Ahtone of High Country News for “Land Grab Universities,” the product of a two-year investigation exploring how the 1862 Morrill Act exploited 250 Native American tribes.
State Reporting: Ian Shapira of The Washington Post for stories exposing overt racism at the state-supported Virginia Military Institute.
Justice Reporting: Staff of the Washington Post for “George Floyd’s America,” a six-part series illustrating how uncanny a match Floyd’s life and death were for the national movement his murder came to symbolize.
Magazine Reporting: Katie Engelhart of The California Sunday Magazine for her riveting 17,000-word narrative analyzing American nursing homes’ failed response to the Covid-19 pandemic, “What Happened in Room 10?” .
Military Reportng: Matthias Gafni, Joe Garofoli and Tal Kopan of the San Francisco Chronicle for disclosing the Pentagon’s punishment of a Navy Captain who sought to protect sailors from exposure to the Covid-19 virus.
Televison Reporting: Roberto Ferdman and his VICE News Tonight team for breakthrough coverage of the shooting death of Breonna Taylor in a “no-knock” police raid in Louisville.Special Award: Regina Martinez of Proceso (posthumously) and Forbidden Stories, a global network of investigative journalists, for “The Cartel Project”.
2019 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting: Azam Ahmed of The New York Times for accounts of gang violence in the Americas.
National Reporting: Lomi Kriel of the Houston Chronicle for revealing inhumane government treatment of refugees.
Metropolitan Reporting: Newsday for “Long Island Divided,” documenting widespread discrimination in suburban housing.
Local Reporting: Brian M. Rosenthal of The New York Times for uncovering a scheme to defraud taxi buyers with exorbitant loans to cover inflated costs.
International Reporting: Mark Scheffler, Malachy Browne and the Visual Investigations Team of The New York Times for amassing forensic proof Russian pilots bombed hospitals in Syria.
Financial Reporting: Noah Buhayar, Caleb Melby, David Kocieniewski and Lauren Leatherby of Bloomberg News for revealing how developers profited from economic “opportunity zones.”
Business Reporting: Dominic Gates, Mike Baker, Steve Miletich and Lewis Kamb of The Seattle Times for tying deadly crashes to decisions by Boeing and FAA to cut corners on safety checks.
Environmental Reporting: Helena Bottemiller Evich of Politico for revealing that government officials hid research on methods of adapting to climate change from farmers.
Military Reporting: Craig Whitlock of The Washington Post for “The Afghanistan Papers,” for exposing an official study detailing two decades of failed U.S. policy.
Justice Reporting: Lisa Gartner of The Philadelphia Inquirer for uncovering odious abuse leading to the closure of a boys reformatory.
Political Reporting: Chance Swaim, Jonathan Shorman and Dion Lefler of The Wichita Eagle and Luke Broadwater and The Baltimore Sun staff for exposing misconduct leading to the ouster of mayors in both cities.
Magazine Reporting: Lizzie Presser of ProPublica for “The Dispossessed,” an article in The New Yorker showing how speculators in the South use legal loopholes to seize black-owned ancestral lands.
Television Reporting: John Sudworth of BBC News for revealing the extensive use of camps in western China to detain and indoctrinate Uyghur Muslims.
Special Award: Nikole Hannah-Jones of The New York Times and contributors for the 1619 Project, examining the central role of slavery in U.S. history and its ongoing effects in contemporary society.
2018 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting: Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo and staff of Reuters for “Massacre in Myanmar,” exposing the execution of 10 Rohingya Muslims in a remote village.
National Reporting: The staff of The New York Times for demonstrating how social media giants promulgated hatemongering and misinformation to maximize profits.
State Reporting: Jeff Adelson, Jim Mustian, Gordon Russell, John Simerman and staff of The New Orleans Advocate for a series spurring elimination of split jury verdicts that victimized black defendants.
Local Reporting: Kathleen McGrory and Neil Bedi of the Tampa Bay Times for “Heartbroken,” a series on deadly missteps at a children’s hospital.
Political Reporting: David Barstow, Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner of The New York Times for tracing President Donald Trump’s wealth to an inherited fortune and “dubious tax schemes.”
Medical Reporting: to Kirby Dick, Amy Ziering and Amy Herdy for “The Bleeding Edge,” a documentary aired by Netflix linking the failure of risk-prone medical devices to lax regulation.
Justice Reporting: Julie K. Brown of the Miami Herald for “Perversion of Justice,” exposing how a federal prosecutor helped a hedge-fund billionaire evade punishment for sexually abusing dozens of under-age girls.
Immigration Reporting: Staff of ProPublica for “Zero Tolerance,” exposing the separation of young children from families as a tactic to deter border crossings and uncovering harsh conditions in federal shelters.
Education Reporting: Craig Harris, Anne Ryman, Alden Woods and Justin Price of The Arizona Republic for exposing windfall profits and poor performance by politically connected charter schools.
Environmental Reporting: Photojournalist Larry C. Price and contributing reporters for Undark Magazine for “Breathtaking,” a global examination of the sources and effects of deadly particulate pollutants.
Magazine Reporting: Ben Taub of The New Yorker for a firsthand account of “Iraq’s Post-ISIS Campaign of Revenge” by minority Sunnis against Shiites in sham trials sometimes leading to summary executions.
Foreign Television Reporting: Jane Ferguson of the PBS NewsHour for her graphic portrayal of a humanitarian disaster resulting from the proxy war between forces allied with Saudi Arabia and Iran in northern Yemen.
Local Television Reporting: Joe Bruno of WSOC-TV in Charlotte for stories on ballot tampering in a rural North Carolina Congressional race.
Podcast: Madeleine Baran and Samara Freemark of APM Reports for “In the Dark: Season Two,” a compelling case for the innocence of a death-row inmate tried and convicted six times for a quadruple murder in 1996.
Special Award: Columnist David Ignatius and editor Karen Attiah of The Washington Post for eloquence and resolve in demanding accountability in the wake of the gruesome murder of Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
Career Award: Public radio pioneer Bill Siemering.
2017 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting: Iona Craig, The Intercept, for documenting the destruction and civilian casualties of a covert Navy SEAL raid upon a remote village in Yemen.
National Reporting: Jody Kantor and Megan Twohey, The New York Times andRonan Farrow, The New Yorker, for exposing the decades-long sexual predation of the movie producer Harvey Weinstein and the campaign to cover it up.
Local Reporting: Melissa Segura, BuzzFeed, for drawing attention to innocent men framed for murder by a Chicago police detective that led to their exoneration.
Immigration Reporting: Maria Perez,The Naples Daily News, for exposing Florida companies that hired undocumented workers and arranged their deportation to avoid making workers compensation payments, and Antonia Farzan and Joseph Flaherty, Phoenix New Times, for revealing that Motel 6’s in Phoenix provided guest rosters to ICE agents investigating undocumented immigrants.
Financial Reporting: International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, for mining 13.4 million records to reveal how corporate giants and prominent individuals use financial manipulations to evade taxes.
Medical Reporting: Nina Martin, ProPublica and Renee Montagne, NPR, for explaining the reasons and portraying the tragedies behind an alarming increase in maternal deaths in pregnancy and delivery in the U.S.
Political Reporting: Stephanie McCrummen and Beth Reinhard, The Washington Post, for disclosing accounts of Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore’s sexual assault upon a 14-year-old girl and pursuit of other teenagers.
Magazine Reporting: Ben Taub, The New Yorker, for showing the humanitarian devastation an regional conflicts caused by the shrinkage of Lake Chad
Photography: Adam Dean and Tomas Munita, The New York Times, for capturing the plight of Rohingya fleeing burning villages in Myanmar for refugee camps in Bangladesh.
National Television Reporting: Elle Reeve, Josh Davis and Tracy Jarret, VICE News, for on-the-scene coverage of the Charlottesville demonstrations that probed the motivations and tactics of white nationalist leaders.
Foreign Television Reporting: Nima Elbagir and Raja Razek, CNN, for uncovering a hidden modern-day slave auction of African refugees in Libya.
Public Service: David Begnaud, CBS News, for capturing the destructive power of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and documenting how limited aid from the federal and territorial governments delayed the island’s recovery
Commentary: Gail Collins, The New York Times, for columns of satiric wit and neighborly wisdom that probe the oddities of American politics and social mores.
Special Award: Staffs of The New York Times and The Washington Post, for revealing ties between the Trump campaign and Kremlin-connected Russians that gave rise to the investigation into possible collusion during the 2016 election.
2016 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting: Correspondent Nicholas Casey and photographer Meredith Kohut, New York Times, for defying government resistance to portray the depths of privation result from Venezuela’s economic collapse.
National Reporting: Alec MacGillis, ProPublica, for prescient dispatches late in the Presidential campaign citing momentum for Donald Trump, and “Revenge of the Forgotten Class,” a 4,400-word post-election analysis.
Local Reporting: Darwin BondGraham and Ali Winston, East Bay Express, for exposing a sordid sex scandal inside the Oakland police department involving a teen-aged prostitute that led up the ranks and cost three police chiefs their jobs in a single week.
State Reporting: Craig Harris, Arizona Republic, for exposing the wholesale termination of women, minority and older state employees, including an award-winning teacher diagnosed with cancer and an African-American correctional officer injured on he job who were both reinstated.
Political Reporting: David Fahrenthold, Washington Post, for a string of stories on matters Presidential candidate Donald Trump had long sought to keep secret, including his foundation’s deceptive activities and the existence of a video in which he bragged about sexually assaulting women.
Financial Reporting: The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists for “the Panama Papers,” using leaked files to expose billions in hidden investments in offshore companies tied to Syria’s air war, the looting of Africa’s natural resources and Russian associates of Vladimir Putin
Medical Reporting: Lenny Bernstein, Scott Higham and David Fallis, Washington Post, for tracing the DEA’s lax regulation of narcotic painkillers despite a deadly national addiction epidemic to drug industry pressure.
Justice Reporting: Christie Thompson, The Marshall Project, and Joseph Shapiro, NPR, for revealing an oxymoronic abuse of prison inmates i–double solitary confinement – sometimes resulting in violence and death.
Magazine Reporting: Anand Gopal. The Atlantic, for "The Hell After Isis,” a wrenching 9,000-word account of the travails of an Iraqi family caught in the crossfire between Islamic State terrorists and U.S.-backed forces.
Sports Reporting: Rebecca R. Ruiz, New York Times, for an account of a Russian state-run doping program to enhance the performances of Olympic athletes and evade detection by secretly substituting test samples.
Education Reporting: Brian M. Rosenthal, Houston Chronicle, for exposing a statewide quota denying special education services for more than 8.5 percent of students in any of the 1,200 school districts in Texas.
Photojournalism: Daniel Berehulak, New York Times for "They Are Slaughtering Us Like Animals," depicting the wanton carnage of President Rodrigo Duterte’s murderous drug crackdown in the Philippines.
Radio Reporting: Robert Lewis, WNYC, for questioning New York City’s lax oversight of conflicts of interest among police leading to inappropriate dealings such as a commander’s purchase of discounted property from a distraught woman whose father’s disappearance was under investigation.
Television Reporting: Reporter A. J. Lagoe, producer Steve Eckert and photojournalist Gary Knox, KARE-11 Minneapolis, for “Invisible Wounds," a series disclosing that the VA deployed unqualified diagnosticians, some not even physicians, to diagnose veterans for traumatic brain injuries.
Career Award: Anna Deavere Smith, playwright, actress and oral historian
2015 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting: Associated Press reporters Margie Mason, Robin McDowell, Martha Mendoza and Esther Htusan for“Seafood Slaves,” on abysmal treatment of seafood workers in Thailand, some held against their will and others buried in unmarked graves, andIan Urbina, New York Times,for“The Outlaw Ocean,”a series on lawlessness on the high seas.
National Reporting:Washington Postfor a series tallying and categorizing Americans shot dead by police over the course of a year
Regional Reporting: Terrence McCoy, Washington Post,for exposing companies in Maryland and Virginia that convinced unsophisticated victims to accept pennies on the dollar for court-ordered compensation.
Local Reporting: Jamie Kalven, Invisible Institute,for“Sixteen Shots,”an account published inline by Slate that contradicted the official narrative of the fatal police shooting of a black teenager in Chicago.
Education Reporting: Cara Fitzpatrick, Lisa Gartner and Michael LaForgia, Tampa Bay Times, for tracing a decline in black student success to a 2007 school board decision effectively re-segregating schools.
Financial Reporting: John Carreyrou, Wall Street Journal, for stories cast doubt on innovative claims by a Silicon Valley blood-testing company.
Justice Reporting: Ken Armstrong, The Marshall Project,andT. Christian Miller,ProPublicafor“An Unbelievable Story of Rape,” vindicating a teenaged rape victim initially charged with filing a false report of the crime.
Legal Reporting: Jessica Silver-Greenberg, Michael Corkery and Robert Gebeloff, New York Timesfor“Beware the Fine Print,”a series on how arbitration clauses deprive people of their right to settle disputes in court.
Military Reporting: New York Times reportersMark Mazzetti, Nicholas Kulish, Christopher Drew, Serge F. Kovaleski, Matthew Rosenberg, Sean D. Naylor and John Ismay, for examining allegations that daring Navy SEAL teams operated with little oversight and often used excessive force.
Medical Reporting: Jason Cherkis,Huffington Post,for revealing that pressure from 12-step programs barred many publicly funded addiction treatment centers from prescribing effective medication-assisted therapy.
Magazine Reporting: Writers Noreen Malone and Jen Kirby and photographer Amanda Demme, New York magazine,for“Cosby: The Women, An Unwelcome Sisterhood,”a cover story presenting on-the-record accounts of 35 women accusing Bill Cosby of sexual assault.
Photography: Andrew Quilty, Foreign Policy Magazinefor“The Man on the Operating Table,”depicting the devastating effects of an errant U.S. airstrike on a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan.
Radio Reporting: Nikole Hannah-Jonesfor“The Problem We All Live With”aired on“This American Life” examining how parents and politicians contrived to re-segregate a Missouri publicschool and its impact.
Television Reporting: Correspondent Jim Axelrod and producer Emily Rand, CBS News,for “Compounding Pharmacy Fraud,” revealing how some pharmacies billed insurers for worthless potions and supplements.
Career Award: Simeon Booker, pioneering African-American journalist
2014 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Rania Abouzeid, independent Australian-Lebanese journalist, for “The Jihad Next Door,” an authoritative account of the rise of the Islamic State published online by Politico Magazine.
International Reporting:Rukmini Callimachi, New York Times, for revealing that European nations secretly paid the Islamic State millions of dollars to ransom hostages.
National Reporting:Carol Leonnig, Washington Post,for series of exclusive reports on serious security lapses and misconduct by the U.S. Secret Service, which filed false and incomplete accounts of the missteps.
Local Reporting:Tim Novak,Chris FuscoandCarol Marin, Chicago Sun-Times,for reports leading police to reopen a 10-year-old homicide case involving a nephew of former mayor Richard M. Daley.
State Reporting:Doug Pardue, Glenn Smith, Jennifer Berry HawesandNatalie Caula Hauff, Charleston Post and Courier, for linking 300 deaths of women in South Carolina to the indifferent response to domestic abuse by authorities.
Health Reporting:New York Times reporters Adam Nossiter, Norimitsu Onishi, Ben Solomon, Sheri Fink, and Helene Cooperandphotographer Daniel Berehulak, for early coverage of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa.
Business Reporting: International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a consortium of 120 reporters from 42 entities in 58 countries formed with help from the Center for Public Integrity, for showing inventive methods big companies and wealthy individuals use to avoid paying taxes.
Environmental Reporting:Seattle Timesfor linking a mudslide that cost 43 lives to corners cut, safeguards disregarded and warnings ignored.
Justice Reporting:Julie K. Brown, the Miami Herald,andMichael SchwirtzandMichael Winerip, New York Times,for revealing rampant brutalizing of mentally impaired inmates that caused injury and death.
Magazine Reporting:James Verini, National Geographic,for an 11,000-word report on the Democratic Republic of the Congo that asked, “Should the United Nations Wage War to Keep Peace?”
Military Reporting:Dennis Wagner, Arizona Republic,for disclosing that VA officials in Phoenix and elsewhere won bonuses based on false wait-time data for treatment of veterans, some of whom died awaiting care.
Television Reporting:Correspondent John Carlos Frey and producers Marisa Venegas andSolly Granatstein for “Dying to Cross,” on the deaths of 400 migrants abandoned in the Texas desert jointly produced by The Investigative Fund, Telemundo, The Weather Channel, andEfran Films.
Commentary:Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic,for “The Case for Reparations.”
Career Award:Garry Trudeau, creator of “Doonesbury”
2013 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:James Yardley, New York Times, for documenting Bangladesh workers’ unsafe conditions and paltry wages at the hands of garment manufacturers with political ties in the aftermath of the Rana Plaza collapse, which claimed more than 1,100 lives.
National Reporting:Eli Saslow, The Washington Post, for profiling six of the families receiving federal nutrition assistance in a $78 billion program serving 47 million recipients in a program that tripled in scope in a decade.
State Reporting:Shawn Boburg, Record of Northern New Jersey, for articles linking a huge traffic jam created by lane closures on an approach to the George Washington Bridge to retribution by Governor Chris Christie’s campaign operatives against a mayor who failed to endorse his reelection.
Local Reporting:Andrea Elliott, New York Times, for “Invisible Child,” a five-part series about one of New York City’s 22,000 homeless children.
National Security Reporting:Glenn Greenwald, Ewen MacAskill and Laura Poitras, The Guardian and Barton Gellman, Washington Post, for investigative stories on massive NSA surveillance based on top-secret documents disclosed by former intelligence analyst Edward Snowden.
Political Reporting:Rosalind Helderman, Laura Vozzella and Carol Leonnig, Washington Post, for revealing that the Virginia governor and his wife received $165,000 in loans and gifts from an entrepreneur.
Medical Reporting:Meg Kissinger, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, for a series on the Milwaukee County’s dysfunctional mental health system, and Cynthia Hubert and Phillip Reese, Sacramento Bee, for exposing a Las Vegas psychiatric hospital’s practice of exporting patients — 1,500 over five years — to locales across the country via Greyhound bus.
Justice Reporting:Frances Robles, Sharon Otterman, Michael Powell and N. R. Kleinfield, New York Times, for uncovering evidence that a Brooklyn homicide detective used false confessions, tainted testimony and coercive tactics to convict dozens of defendants.
Sports Reporting:Tim Elfrink, Miami New Times, for revealing that some of baseball’s biggest stars received banned performance enhancers from a Florida anti-aging clinic.
Business Reporting:Alison Fitzgerald, Daniel Wagner, Lauren Kyger and John Dunbar, Center for Public Integrity, for “After the Meltdown,” a series demonstrating that the federal government failed to call any major Wall Street figure to account for financial crisis and many had resumed the sort of reckless investing that plunged the nation into The Great Recession.
Magazine Reporting:Matthieu Aikins, Rolling Stone, for “The A-Team Killings,” which made a strong case that aU.S. Army Special Forces unit had executed 10 civiliansoutside a base in Afghanistan
Television Reporting:Michael Kirk, Jim Gilmore, Mike Wiser, Steve Fainaru and Mark Fainaru-Wada, PBS Frontline, for “League of Denial,” tracing longstanding NFL efforts to quash evidence linking head injuries to an high instances of chronic traumatic encephalopathy in former players.
Local Television Reporting:Noah Pransky, WTSP, Tampa, for disclosing how government officials and a contractor bilked drivers in Florida out of millions in fines by shortening yellow lights at intersections.
Career Award:Pete Hamill, columnist and author
2012 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Bloomberg News for “China Betrayed,” on the wealth of a municipal official ousted after the murder of a British businessman, and David Barboza, New York Times, for“The Princelings,” tracing a $2.7 billion fortune accumulated by Prime Minister Wen Jiabao’s family.
National Reporting:John Hechinger and Janet Lorin, Bloomberg News, for “Indentured Students,” a series revealing that the U.S. paid $1 billion in commissions to student loan debt collectors who often misled borrowers.
Local Reporting:Gina Barton, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, for an investigative report on the death of a man in police custody, leading to its re-categorization is a homicide and a medical examiner’s resignation.
State Reporting:Ryan Gabrielson, California Watch, for exposing how a special police force for developmental centers was failing to solve crimes against the disabled residents.
War Reporting:David Enders, Austin Tice (in absentia after his capture and disappearance) and the staff of McClatchy Newspapers for chronicling the complexities of the civil war in Syria.
Political Reporting:David Corn, Mother Jones, for obtaining a recording of presidential candidate Mitt Romney confiding that 47 percent of voters “dependent upon government” would oppose him “no matter what.”
Magazine Reporting:Sarah Stillman, New Yorker magazine, for “The Throwaways,” an account of how authorities jeopardized and abandoned teen-aged drug informants.
Justice Reporting:Sam Dolnick, New York Times, for “Unlocked,” exposing gang activity, drug use, lax security and decrepit conditions at New Jersey halfway houses owned by a crony of Governor Chris Christie.
Medical Reporting:Peter Whoriskey, Washington Post, for “Biased Research, Big Profits,” a series on pharmaceutical industry payoffs to doctors to promote misleading findings sometimes endangering patients.
Business Reporting:David Barstow and Alejandra Xanic von Bertrab (a Mexico-based freelance), New York Times, for “Wal-Mart Abroad,” demonstrating how the giant retailer used bribery to fuel overseas growth.
Education Reporting:Colin Woodard, Maine Sunday Telegram, for detailing how online education companies steered development of Maine’s digital education policies.
Television Reporting:Correspondent Holly Williams and videographer Andrew Portch, CBS News, for coverage of Chinese human rights activist Chen Guangcheng, who fled to the West after years of house arrest.
Television Documentary:Correspondent Martin Smith and producer Michael Kirk, PBS Frontline, for “Money, Power and Wall Street,” an inside look into the derivation and impact of the global economic crisis.
Video Reporting:Tracey Shelton, GlobalPost, for reports on the Syrian war’s human toll including one on a 4-year sole survivor of an entire family.
2011 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Reporter Jeffrey Gettleman and photographer Tyler Hicks, New York Times, for coverage of fighting in South Sudan and Somalia, where Shabbab militants prevented starving people from fleeing.
International Reporting:Ben Elgin, Alan Katz and Vernon Silverl, Bloomberg News, for revealing how Western companies sold surveillance technology to repressive governments to use against their opponents.
National Reporting:Wall Street Journal for a series on ways federal officials and well-connected investors exploited insider stock trading.
Local Reporting:A.M. Sheehan and Matt Hongoltz-Hetling, the Norway (Me.) Advertiser Democrat, for a report on Maine’s failure to address abysmal and unsafe conditions in government-subsidized housing.
Metropolitan Reporting:Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, Chris Hawley and Eileen Sullivan, Associated Press, for a revealing look at expansive New York City Police intelligence operations including the targeting of mosques.
Military Reporting:C.J. Chivers, New York Times, for coverage of wars in Libya and Afghanistan, especially dispatches from Misurata where he authenticated Libyan forces’ indiscriminate use of brutal weapons.
Medical Reporting:Lance Williams, Christina Jewett and Stephen K. Doig, California Watch, for a report on how a hospital chain used false diagnoses of rare conditions to over-bill Medicare.
Legal Reporting:Thomas Farragher, Marcella Bombardieri, Jonathan Saltzman, Matt Carroll and Darren Durlach, Boston Globe, for delving into a high acquittal rate in Massachusetts drunk driving cases.
Sports Reporting:Sara Ganim, Harrisburg Patriot-News, for revelatory coverage of Penn State’s cover-up of a coach’s pedophilia, allowing him to abuse more victims.
Magazine Reporting:Jane Mayer, New Yorker magazine, for “The Secret Sharer,” a case against the prosecution of an official for espionage for leaking information that led prosecutors to drop all major charges.
Television Reporting:Brian Ross and Anna Schecter, ABC News 20/20, for "Peace Corps: A Trust Betrayed," accusing the Peace Corps of covering up its failure to protect a woman slain in West Africa and other volunteers.
Television Documentary:Reporter May Ying Welsh and field producer Hassan Mahfood, Al Jazeera English, for "Bahrain: Shouting in the Dark,”
Radio Reporting:Ira Glass, “This American Life,” for "Very Tough Love," a report on excessive punishments ordered by a Georgia drug court judge.
Special Award: Anthony Shadid, New York Times (posthumously), “for extraordinary valor for his work in the Middle East.”
Career Award:Ronnie Dugger, founding editor of The Texas Observer
2010 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Clifford J. Levy and Ellen Barry, New York Times, for “Above the Law,” a series that examined corruption and abuse of power in Russia two decades after the fall of Communism,
National Reporting:Dana Priest and William M. Arkin, Washington Post, for “Top Secret America,” detailing the proliferation of a huge ecosystem of military, intelligence and corporate interests spawned after 9/11.
Local Reporting:Jeff Gottlieb, Ruben Vives and the staff, Los Angeles Times, for exposing conditions in Bell, a small working-class city near LA rife with corruption and exorbitance – an administrator was paid $800,000 a year – prompting charges against eight past and present municipal officials.
Metropolitan Reporting:Amy Brittain and Mark Mueller, Newark Star-Ledger, for “Strong at Any Cost,” a series on New Jersey police officers and firefighters’ rampant use of steroids, often obtained with fake prescriptions.
Magazine Reporting:Michael Hastings, Rolling Stone, for “The Runaway General,” a profile of General Stanley McChrystal that led President Obama to dismiss him as commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.
Environmental Reporting:Associated Press, for coverage of the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Education Reporting:Dan Golden, John Hechinger, and John Lauerman, Bloomberg News, for “Education Inc.,” a series showing that for-profit colleges recruited unlikely students for dubious programs to cash in on $26.5 in annual federal financial aid.
Criminal Justice Reporting:John Diedrich and Ben Poston, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for “Wiped Clean,” a series revealing how infrequently the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives revokes the licenses of lawbreaking gun dealers.
Military Reporting:Dexter Filkins and Mark Mazzetti, New York Times, for a sobering behind-the-scenes look at U. S. conduct in Afghanistan.
Commentary:Juan Gonzalez, New York Daily News, for columns on a failed $700 million overhaul of New York City’s electronic payroll system and the mayor’s failure to pick up on persistent signs of mismanagement.
Radio Reporting:T. Christian Miller, ProPublica, and Daniel Zwerdling and Susanne Reber, NPR, for “Brain Wars,” which found that the U. S. military provided inadequate diagnoses and treatment of traumatic brain injuries suffered by thousands of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Television Reporting:A.C. Thompson, ProPublica, Laura Maggi and Brendan McCarthy, New Orleans Times-Picayune, and Raney Aronson-Rath and Tom Jennings, PBS Frontline, for “Law and Disorder,” examining claims police shot 10 people, killing four, in post-Katrina New Orleans.
Career Award:Sandy Close, executive director of New America Media.
2009 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting: David Rohde, New York Times, for “Held by the Taliban,” a series detailing Rohde’s own seven months in captivity.
National Reporting: Mark Pittman (postumously), Bob Ivry, Alison Fitzgerald and Craig Torres, Bloomberg News, for articles challenging the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve Board to open their books on trillions of dollars in bailout aid that went to financial institutions.
State Reporting:Raquel Rutledge, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, for portraying Wisconsin’s $350-million child-care system as a hotbed of criminal activity that repeatedly endangers children.
Local Reporting:George Pawlaczyk and Beth Hundsdorfer, Belleville (Ill.) News-Democrat, for “Trapped in Tamms,” a series on harsh conditions at an Illinois “supermax” prison where inmates, many mentally ill, were held in solitary confinement 23 hours a day for more than 10 years.
Sports Reporting:Alan Schwarz,New York Times, for a report on long-term dangers of concussions and the National Football League’s flawed response to the issue.
Business Reporting:Kathy Chu, USA Today, for “Credit Trap,” which documented how banks and other credit card issuers reap tens of billions of dollars in profit each year from steep fees and unscrupulous practices.
Military Reporting:Charlie Reed, Kevin Baron and Leo Shane III, Stars and Stripes, for “Shaping the Message,” a series that revealed that the Pentagon had used a public relations company to profile journalists and steer them toward positive coverage of the war in Afghanistan.
Magazine Reporting:David Grann, New Yorker magazine, for “Trial by Fire,” debunking expert testimony in a 1991 arson case as pseudo science in presenting what may be the first thoroughly documented case of the execution of an innocent man under the modern American judicial system.
Environmental Reporting:Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica, for examining possible carcinogenic effects of natural gas drilling by hydraulic fracturing.
International Television Reporting:Correspondent Dan Rivers and producers Kit Swartz, Kocha Olarn and Theerasak Nitipiched, CNN, for tracking the nightmarish existence of Rohingya refugees in southeast Asia.
National Television Reporting:Correspondent Steve Kroft and producer Leslie Cockburn, CBS “60 Minutes,” for “The Price of Oil,” which detailed Wall Street’s growing influence on speculative oil prices.
Videography:Anonymous individuals who taped the shooting death of 26-year-old Neda Agha-Soltan at a protest in Tehran and uploading the video to the Internet where it became a focus of reformist opposition in Iran.
Career Award:Gene Roberts, reporter and editor.
2008 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting: Barry Bearak and Celia W. Dugger, New York Times, whose coverage of violence in Zimbabwe after the disputed re-election of President Robert Mugabe was unimpeded by the four-day jailing of Bearak.
International Reporting:Paul Salopek, Chicago Tribune,for articles on rendition of suspects and other U.S. antiterrorist activity in remote areas on the Horn of Africa in Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia, Sudan and Eritrea.
National Reporting: David Barstow, New York Times,for “Message Machine," a two-part series documenting how retired military officers turned news analysts mouthed Pentagon talking points and plugged defense contractors who employed them as consultants.
Local Reporting:Jim Schaefer and M.L. Elrick, Detroit Free Press, for revealing Detroit’s mayor used $8.4 million in city funds to settle a whistle-blower case in exchange for destroying evidence of his affair with an aide and lied under oath about it, leading to his resignation and jailing.
Military Reporting: Eric Nalder,Seattle Post-Intelligencer, for "Demoted to Private: America's Military Housing Disaster,” a series revealing that the Pentagon awarded a billion dollars in contracts to politically connected contractors in a dubious effort to privatize military housing construction.
Labor Reporting:Paul Pringle,Los Angeles Times,for “Union Boss Under Fire,” an account of how a union local representing 160,000 mostly low-wage workers paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to companies owned by relatives of its president, who was subsequently removed from office.
Justice Reporting:Ryan Gabrielson and Paul Giblin, Mesa (Ariz.) East Valley Tribune, for “Reasonable Doubt,” a five-part series on Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's extra-legal campaign against illegal immigrants
Magazine Reporting: Richard Behar for "China Storms Africa," published inthe business magazine Fast Company, detailing China’s drive to invest in sub-Saharan African nations to acquire raw materials for manufacturing.
Environmental Reporting:Susanne Rust and Meg Kissinger, Milwaukee Journal Sentinelfor a series on the failure of federal agencies to monitor and regulate potentially harmful toxins found in everyday materials from microwave-safe plastics to baby bottles.
Sports Reporting:Ken Armstrong and Nick Perry, Seattle Times, for "Victory and Ruins," a series revealing that two dozen members of the 2001 University of Washington Rose Bowl team were allowed to play despite their arrests, some for violent felonies.
Television Reporting:Correspondent Scott Pelley and producers Solly Granatstein and Nicole Young , CBS 60 Minutes, for "The Wasteland," exposing how U.S. companies paid to recycle electronic waste dumped it in China, leading to ecological despoliation and health concerns.
Documentary Reporting:Stefan Forbes for "Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story," a portrait of a multi-faceted Republican strategist whose controversial tactics continued to influence politics long after his death.
Radio Reporting:Alex Blumberg, "This American Life," and Adam Davidson, NPR, for "The Giant Pool of Money," a collaborative explanation of the complex chain of events that led to the subprime mortgage crisis.
Career Award:Gay Talese, journalist and author
2007 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Leila Fadel, McClatchy Newspapers, for chilling, first-hand accounts of ethnically inspired violence and murder in Iraq.
Local Reporting: (posthumously) Chauncey W. Bailey, Jr., editor of theweekly Oakland Post, slain while investigating a business linked to kidnapping, rape, torture, and several killings, now including his own.
State Reporting:Jerry Mitchell, Jackson Clarion-Ledger, for revealing that outbreaks of tuberculosis and syphilis and an alarming increase in infant mortality went unreported by the Mississippi Department of Health.
Political Reporting:Barton D. Gellman and Jo Becker, Washington Post, for a series on Vice President Dick Cheney's role as the architect of tortuous interrogation, military tribunals and other hard-line U.S. policies.
Environmental Reporting: Shai Oster, Wall Street Journal, for disclosing how China’s $22 billion Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River devastated villages, causing landslides and displaced 4 million residents.
Medical Reporting:Charles A. Duhigg, New York Times, for exposing unethical practices by nursing homes, long-term care insurers and allied businesses and investors that put the elderly at risk.
Legal Reporting:Joshua Marshall, Talking Points Memo, for reports uncovering politically motivated dismissals of United States attorneys.
Consumer Reporting:Chicago Tribune foraccounts of children suffering injury and death from exposure to lead-tainted toys, defective cribs and other dangerous products, many imported from China.
Magazine Reporting:Joshua A. Kors for articles inThe Nation, on the U.S. Army's denial of disability and medical benefits to thousands of Iraqi War veterans, asserting they had pre-existing “personality disorders.”
Financial Reporting:Edward Chancellor, Institutional Investor, for "Ponzi Nation,” sounding an alarm months before the crisis in financial markets over subprime mortgages and poorly regulated hedge funds emerged.
Business Reporting: Charlotte Observer, for a prescient series tying the area's high rate of housing foreclosures to subprime mortgage loans.
Television Reporting:Correspondent Jim Sciutto, producer Angus Hines and videographer Tom Murphy, ABC World News, who posed as tourists to secretly tape violent government crackdowns on protestors in Myanmar.
Book:Jeremy Scahill, “Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army”
Career Award:John McPhee, author, essayist and educator
2006 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Lydia Polgreen, New York Times, for coverage of a under-reported war in Darfur in western Sudan and Chad that killed 200,000 and displaced 2.5 million.
National Reporting:Jeff Kosseff, Bryan Denson and Les Zaitz, Oregonian, for articles chronicling the failures in a $2.25 billion federal program intended to help people with disabilities find jobs but instead enriched executives at the expense of taxpayers and underpaid workers.
Metropolitan Reporting:Debbie Cenziper, Miami Herald, for “House of Lies,” an investigative report documenting mismanagement in the Miami-Dade Housing Agency allowing developers and consultants to amass fortunes while families suffered in shelters and rat-infested buildings.
Local Reporting:Lakefront Outlook, a free Chicago weekly, for revealing that a $19.5 million community center hailed by a city alderman as a local treasure was a deficit-ridden political plum staffed by her family and friends.
Military Reporting:Lisa Chedekel and Matthew Kauffman, Hartford Courant, for "Mentally Unfit, Forced to Fight," a four-part series on the high rate of suicide among American troops.
Medical Reporting:Robert Little, Baltimore Sun, for “Dangerous Remedy,” a series on an experimental blood-coagulating drug administered to more than 1,000 soldiers despite links to fatal clots in the heart, lungs and brain.
Environmental Reporting:Kenneth R. Weiss and Usha Lee McFarling, Los Angeles Times, for “Altered Oceans,” a five-part series linking rashes among Australian fishermen, brain-damaged sea lions in California and red tides in Florida to damaging pollution.
Business Reporting:Charles Forelle, James Bandler and Mark Maremont, Wall Street Journal, for exposing backdating of stock options to enhance executive compensation prompting resignations and charges.
Political Reporting:Ray Ring, High Country News, for revealing that referenda campaigns in six Western states to roll back environmental protections were financed by a wealthy libertarian real estate investor.
Radio Reporting:“Early Signs: Reports From a Warming Planet,” a documentary on global impacts of climate change produced by students at Cal-Berkeley and aired by “Living on Earth,” American Public Media.
Documentary Television:Spike Lee and Sam Pollard, for “When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts” on HBO on the human misery and paltry government response in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina
Network Television Reporting:Lisa Myers and Adam Ciralsky, NBC Nightly News, for detailing the awarding of a $70 million defense contract to a U.S. company despite a far cheaper alternative developed in Israel.
2005 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Joe Stephens and David B. Ottaway, Washington Post, for documenting false claims and sweeping failures in an American program to reconstruct schools and clinics in Afghanistan.
International Reporting:José More and Cam Simpson, Chicago Tribune, for revealing the massacre of 12 Nepalese men lured to Iraq by promises of jobs from human traffickers financed by a $12 billion U.S. defense contract.
National Reporting:Dana Priest, Washington Post, for exposing a secret network of detention centers in Eastern Europe where the C.I.A. held terrorism suspects.
Local Reporting:Adam Clay Thompson, San Francisco Bay Guardian, for "Forgotten City," a series detailing atrocious living conditions in buildings of the San Francisco Housing Authority.
Metropolitan Reporting:New Orleans Times-Picayune, for uninterrupted online coverage of Hurricane Katrina that garnered 30 million hits a day.
Business Reporting:Barry Meier, New York Times, for exposing the Guidant Corporation’s failure to publicize a potentially deadly defect in its widely used heart implant device.
Justice Reporting:Jerry Mitchell, Jackson Clarion-Ledger, for stories leading to the arrest and prosecution of Edgar Ray Killen, sentenced to 60 years in the 1964 deaths of three civil rights workers in Mississippi.
Health Reporting:David Evans, Michael Smith and Liz Willen, Bloomberg News, for stories on potentially dangerous federal clinical trials involving poor, mostly minority patients who were not informed of the risks.
Political Reporting:Marcus Stern and Jerry Kammer, Copley News Service and Dean Calbreath, San Diego Union-Tribune, for an exposé that to Rep. Randy Cunningham’s guilty plea for taking $2.4 million in bribes.
Radio Reporting:JoAnn Mar for “Crime Pays: A Look at Who's Getting Rich from the Prison Boom,” an hour-long documentary distributed by PRX.
Television Reporting:Brian Ross and Richard Esposito, ABC News, for disclosing White House-approved “water-boarding and other torturous "enhanced interrogation techniques" used by the C.I.A.
Commentary:Frank Rich, New York Times, for essays on culture and politics
Book Award:Victor S. Navasky, for "A Matter of Opinion"
Career Award:Frederick Wiseman, documentary filmmaker
2004 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Paisley Dodds, Associated Press, for dispatches from Haiti on the U.S.-aided overthrow of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and on floods that later devastated the country.
National Reporting:Walt Bogdanich, New York Times, for "Death on the Tracks,” a series showing how railroads manipulated evidence, government officials and public opinion to save money at the cost of lives.
Local Reporting:Tim Novak and Steve Warmbir, Chicago Sun-Times, for exposing a $40 million corruption scheme in which mobsters made payoffs to city officials to loot a municipal program that used rented dump trucks
Regional Reporting:Santa Rosa Press Democrat, for "Global Shift," a series portraying the human and economic toll of decisions by two employers in California’s Sonoma County to export jobs abroad.
State Reporting:John Hill and Dorothy Korber, Sacramento Bee, for articles on high-ranking California Highway Patrol officials who inflated their pensions with dubious disability and on-the-job injury claims.
Magazine Reporting:Seymour M. Hersh, New Yorker magazine, for accounts of the torture of Iraqis by Americans at Abu Ghraib Prison.
War Reporting:Dexter Filkins, New York Times, for reports on an eight-day siege in bu Iraqi insurgents in Falluja that killed 51 U.S. Marines, six in the company in which he was embedded.
Sports Reporting:Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, San Francisco Chronicle, for disclosing the use of steroids and other performance-enhancing substances by star athletes.
Military Reporting:Diana Henriques, The New York Times, for articles on the fleecing of young soldiers by insurance and investment companies.
Economic Reporting:Ellen E. Schultz and Theo Francis, Wall Street Journal, for “Financial Surgery: How Cuts in Retiree Benefits Fatten Companies Bottom Lines."
Labor Reporting:Justin Pritchard, Associated Press, for "Dying to Work," an investigation of job-related deaths among Mexican workers in the U.S.
Television Reporting:Diane Sawyer and Robbie Gordon, ABC News PrimeTime Live, for "Fighting for Care," which documented patient abuse and deplorable conditions in VA hospitals.
Career Award:Bill Moyers
2003 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Somini Sengupta, New York Times, for coverage of Congo, Liberia and other war-torn areas of West Africa.
National Reporting:Cam Simpson, Flynn McRoberts and Liz Sly, Chicago Tribune, for "Tossed Out of America," a series on the mass deportation of Muslims, victims of ethnic profiling posing no risk to U. S. national security
Local Reporting:Duff Wilson, Brian Joseph and Sheila Farr, Seattle Times, for "The Art of Deception," exposing forged Asian art that led to the closing of a gallery.
State Reporting:Dave Altimari, Jon Lender and Edmund H. Mahony, Hartford Courant, for questioning Gov. John G. Rowland's dealings with state contractors and use of state workers to renovate his lakeside cottage.
Economics Reporting:Nancy Cleeland, Abigail Goldman, Evelyn Iritani and Tyler Marshall, Los Angeles Times, for "The Wal-Mart Effect,” which examined the retailing giant’s impact on nations across the globe.
Business Reporting:Aaron Bernstein and Manjeet Kripalani, BusinessWeek for a series on exporting of white-collar work to third-world countries, "Is Your Job Next?"
Labor Reporting:David Barstow, Lowell Bergman and David Rummel, New York Times, and Neil Docherty and Linden MacIntyre, CBC, for “A Dangerous Business," a collaboration of the Times, CBC and PBS/Frontline exposing safety violations that contributed to 4,500 work-related injuries and the deaths of nine workers at a cast-iron pipe manufacturer.
Internet Reporting:Charles Lewis, executive director, Center for Public Integrity, for ''Windfalls of War: U.S. Contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.''
Magazine Reporting:Southern Exposure for "Banking on Misery: Citigroup, Wall Street and the Fleecing of the South,” detailing predatory lending practices that victimized poor black and elderly Southerners.
Education Reporting:Daniel Golden, Wall Street Journal, for showing that elite colleges give admission preference to children of alumni and donors.
Photojournalism:Carolyn Cole, Los Angeles Times, for depicting Iraqi and Liberian war zones in “brutally honest” terms.
Television Reporting:Andrew Smith and Liviu Tipurita, CNN Presents, for "Easy Prey: Inside the Child Sex Trade."
Radio Reporting:Anne Garrels, NPR, for enduring bombings, blackouts, thirst and intimidation to report from the besieged Iraqi capital of Baghdad.
Career Award:F. Gilman Spencer, New York Daily News editor
2002 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Anthony Shadid, Boston Globe, for a series on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, reporting that took a personal toll when he suffered a bullet wound in Ramallah.
International Reporting:Reporter Sonia Nazario and photographer Don Bartletti, Los Angeles Times, for “Enrique's Journey,” retracing a young Honduran refugee's 800-mile freight-train odyssey.
National Reporting:Boston Globe for "Crisis in the Catholic Church,” a yearlong series exposing sexual abuse by priests and cover-ups by church leaders that led to the resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law.
Local Reporting:Jason Riley and R.G. Dunlop, Louisville Courier-Journal, for "Justice Delayed, Justice Denied," a series on Kentucky’s backlog of unresolved criminal cases.
Regional Reporting:Clifford J. Levy, New York Times, for "Broken Homes," a series on the plight of 15,000 mentally ill residents of state-regulated adult homes in dangerous, often squalid conditions
Health Care Reporting:Walt Bogdanich, Barry Meier and Mary Williams Walsh, New York Times, for "Medicine's Middlemen," a series on two companies that cornered a market on drugs and supplies, inflating costs and reducing quality.
Environmental Reporting:Debbie Salamone with Ramsey Campbell and Robert Sargent,Orlando Sentinel, for "Florida's Water Crisis."
Criminal Justice Reporting:Michael Luo, Associated Press, for "Small Town Justice," exposing gross mismanagement in a county court system.
Financial Reporting:Ellen E. Schultz and Theo Francis, Wall Street Journal, for disclosing how employers manipulated employee benefit plans to enrich themselves.
Medical Reporting:Stephen Kiernan and Cadence Mertz, Burlington Free Press. for "Code of Silence,” a series on Vermont’s failure to eliminate fraudulent and incompetent medical care.
Magazine Reporting:Arnold S. Relman and Marcia Angell, New Republic, for "America's Other Drug Problem," on how drug companies invest far more in advertising and lobbying than research and development.
Television Reporting:Phil Williams and Bryan Staples, WTVF, Nashville, for "Friends in High Places," exposing misconduct by Governor Don Sundquist.
Cultural Criticism:Susan Sontag, The New Yorker, for "Looking at War," which examined modern warfare through the lens of photojournalism.
Career Award:Morley Safer, CBS News
2001 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Barry Bearak, New York Times, for dispatches from Afghanistan.
International Reporting:Sudarsan Raghavan and Sumana Chatterjee, Knight Ridder, for “A Taste of Slavery,” a series on slave labor in the global chocolate trade.
National Reporting:New York Times, for "A Nation Challenged," a daily section from Sept. 18 through Dec. 31 that included biographical sketches of 9/11 victims.
Local Reporting:Heidi Evans and Dave Saltonstall, New York Daily News, for stories on financial problems and neglect at Hale House, a children's home in Harlem.
Metropolitan Reporting:Bill Theobald and Bonnie Harris, Indianapolis Star, for "Destined to Die," a series revealing that officials failed to spay or neuter dogs and cats, leading to mass euthanization.
Regional Reporting:Jessie A. Hamilton, Stephanie Earls, Tom Roeder and Mark Morey, Yakima Herald-Republic, for "Caught by the Fire in the Canyon," a report questioning tactics during a lethal Washington forest fire.
Magazine Reporting:Bernard Lewis, New Yorker magazine, for “The Revolt of Islam.”
Medical Reporting:Duff Wilson and David Heath, Seattle Times, for a series, "Uninformed Consent: What Patients at 'The Hutch' Weren't Told About the Experiments in Which They Died."
Financial Reporting:Susan Pulliam and Randall Smith, Wall Street Journal, for revealing misleading practices by Credit Suisse First Boston in promoting initial stock offerings.
Environmental Reporting:Lisa Davis, San Francisco Weekly, for "Fallout,” stories on the mishandling of radioactive waste at a shipyard.
Television and Radio Reporting:BBC World and BBC World Service Radio, for coverage of the 9/11 attacks that included an account from a correspondent inside the World Trade Center when the first plane hit.
Book:Joan Didion, “Political Fictions,” based on articles on the 2000 presidential election first published in The New York Review of Books.
Career Award:Edna Buchanan, Miami Herald police reporter
2000 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Alma Guillermoprieto, New York Review of Books, for a series on guerrilla warfare and the drug trade in Colombia.
Magazine Reporting:Donald Barlett and James Steele, Time magazine, for “Big Money and Politics: Who Gets Hurt"
National Reporting:Michael Grunwald, Washington Post, for analyzing risky billion-dollar projects undertaken by the Army Corps of Engineers.
Transportation Reporting:Scott McCartney, Wall Street Journal, for stories on FAA negligence in enforcing rules governing cockpit safety, pilot training and air traffic control systems
Political Reporting:Virginia Ellis, Los Angeles Times, for exposing misconduct that cost California’s insurance commissioner his job.
Statewide Reporting:Kevin Corcoran and Joe Fahy, Indianapolis Star, for a series on Indiana's lax oversight of facilities that care for the severely mentally retarded.
Health Care Reporting:Sam Hodges and William Rabb, Mobile Register, for a report on the appalling state of dental care for Alabama children.
Book:Laurie Garrett, “Betrayal of Trust," documenting epidemics and other health catastrophes around the world
Network Television Reporting:John Larson, Allan Maraynes, Lynne Dale, Neal Shapiro and Andy Lehren, NBC Dateline, for "The Paper Chase," a report on how the insurance industry conspires to deny benefits to accident victims.
Local Television Reporting:Anna Werner, David Raziq and Chris Henao, KHOU (Houston), for a series that led Firestone to recall more than six million defective tires, "Treading on Danger?"
Special Award:New York Times, for "How Race Is Lived in America,” a 15-part series examining relationships among people of different races from various walks of life.
Career Award:John B. Oakes, New York Times editorial writer and creator of the op-ed page
1999 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Paul Watson, Los Angeles Times, for coverage of the war in Kosovo.
International Reporting:Sang-hun Choe, Charles J. Hanley, Martha Mendoza and Randy Herschaft, Associated Press, for unearthing the cover-up of a Korean War atrocity in which U. S. troops gunned down hundreds of civilians huddled under a bridge in the conflict’s first weeks.
National Reporting:Jason DeParle, New York Times, for analyzing how life changed for Wisconsin recipients eliminated from state welfare rolls.
Local Reporting:Kevin Carmody, Tinley Park (Ill.) Daily Southtown, for profiling some of the hundreds of Manhattan Project A-bomb workers not alerted to their exposure to a toxic element until 45 years later.
Regional Reporting: Reporter Todd Richissin and photographer Andre Chung, Baltimore Sun, for a series on the brutality of Maryland's boot camps for juveniles convicted of crimes.
Criminal Justice Reporting:Ken Armstrong and Steve Mills, Chicago Tribune, for stories picking up on initial research by Northwestern students that found 12 inmates on death row in Illinois were wrongfully convicted.
Financial Reporting:Ellen E. Schultz, Wall Street Journal, for stories exposing how large U.S, companies alter pension plans to cut retirement benefits of unsuspecting employees.
Medical Reporting:Andrea Gerlin, The Philadelphia Inquirer, for a four-part series on thousands of deaths every year in United States hospitals attributable to medical mistakes
Editorial Writing:New York Daily News for shedding light on grueling conditions experienced by farm laborers excluded from minimum wage laws and other benefits.
Foreign Television Reporting: Reporter Olenka Frenkiel and producers Giselle Portenier and Fiona Murch, BBC, for a documentary aired by ABC on men in rural Pakistan who maim or kill women suspected of infidelity.
Local Television Reporting:The "I" Team, WWOR, for reports on racial profiling by police in New Jersey.
Special Award:The National Security Archive, a private research library, for providing source material on matters like the Iran-Contra scandal.
Career Award:Studs Terkel, interviewer
1998 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times, for reports on strife between Albanian separatists and Serbian nationalists in Kosovo.
International Reporting:Alix M. Freedman, Wall Street Journal, for stories on the sterilization of women in the third world, often without their consent.
National Reporting:Donald Barlett and James Steele, Time magazine, for demonstrating that government incentives to lure or retain businesses almost never pencil out.
Local Reporting:Clifford J. Levy, New York Times, for exploring likely conflicts of interest in political fundraising.
Legal Reporting:Joe Stephens, Kansas City Star, for exposing widespread conflicts of interest among Federal judges
Economic Reporting:Mary Jordan, Keith Richburg and Kevin Sullivan, Washington Post, for a series on the human toll of Asia’s economic crisis.
Environmental Reporting:Gardiner Harris and R.G. Dunlop, Louisville
Courier- Journal, for a report on illegal practices by coal mine operators that cause the death 1,500 workers from black lung disease every year.
Medical Reporting:Robert Whitaker and Dolores Kong, Boston Globe, for a series on federally financed drug trials that harm the mentally ill.
Commentary:Juan Gonzalez, New York Daily News, for columns on New York's poor and disenfranchised.
Radio Reporting:Amy Goodman and Jeremy Scahill, Democracy Now/Pacifica Radio, for documenting Chevron's role in the murder of two environmentalists in Nigeria
Television Reporting:Brian Ross and Rhonda Schwartz, ABC News-20/20, for report on sweatshops in the U. S. commonwealth of Saipan.
Book:Philip Gourevitch, ''We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories From Rwanda''
Career Award:Russell Baker, New York Times “Observer” columnist
1997 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Laurie Garrett, Newsday, for a 25-part series on rampant tuberculosis and AIDS in the former Soviet Union.
International Reporting:Michael Dobbs, Washington Post, for tracing Madeleine Albright’s Jewish roots, unknown to her even though many in her family died in Nazi concentration camps
National Reporting:Keith Bradsher, New York Times, for tying increased air pollution and traffic fatalities to sport utility vehicles and light trucks
Local Reporting:Pensacola News Journal for ‘‘Pensacola’s Brownsville Revival: The money and the Myths,'' exposing religious skullduggery.
Military Affairs Reporting:Dayton Daily News for “Unnecessary Danger,'' a series on the military's protection of incompetent physicians
Medical Reporting:Wall Street Journal for a report on lethal side effects of over-the-counter diet drugs.
Business Reporting:Kurt Eichenwald and Martin Gottlieb, New York Times, for a series on nefarious practices at Columbia/HCA Healthcare, prompting indictments, lawsuits and a corporate reorganization.
Environmental Reporting:Will Englund, Gary Cohn and Perry Thorsvik, Baltimore Sun, for ''Shipbreakers,'' a series on safety and health hazards faced by poorly trained salvage workers.
Sports Reporting: Kansas City Star, for reports on the NCAA's poor enforcement record and its executives' high salaries and lavish perks.
Magazine Reporting:Adam Gopnik, New Yorker magazine, for dispatches from Paris.
Network Television Reporting:Brian Ross and Rhonda Schwartz, ABC Prime Time Live, for ''Blood Money,'' exposing black-market trafficking in human body parts harvested from Chinese prisoners and sold in the U. S.
Book:Horst Faas and Tim Page for “Requiem,” a pictorial tribute to 135 photographers killed covering a quarter-century of war in Southeast Asia.
Career Award:Pittsburgh Courier staff, pioneering Afro-American journalists
1996 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:John F. Burns, New York Times, for dispatches from Afghanistan on the Taliban takeover of Kabul.
National Reporting:Elizabeth Marchak, Cleveland Plain Dealer, for ''The F.A.A. and Valujet Airlines,'' a series outlining federal inaction despite findings of unsafe aircraft, improper maintenance and inadequate training.
Local Reporting:Kevin Collison, Buffalo News, for linking the highway death of a teen-aged worker to a shopping mall’s policy denying access to city buses to discourage minority customers.
Economics Reporting:New York Times for “The Downsizing of America.”
Political Reporting: Los Angeles Times for “Money From Asia,” tracing suspect contributions to the Democratic National Committee
Cultural Reporting:Chuck Philips, Los Angeles Times,for revealing the inner workings of America's $12 billion music industry.
Magazine Reporting:Anne-Marie Cusac, The Progressive, for ''Stunning Technology,'' which exposed life-threatening dangers of security devices used in U.S. prisons and exported to repressive foreign regimes.
Transportation Reporting:Byron Acohido, Seattle Times, for ''Safety at Issue: the 737,'' a series on FAA resistance to study whether poor rudder controls on Boeing planes contributed to several deadly crashes
Criticism:Blair Kamin, Chicago Tribune, for architectural reviews.
National Television Reporting:Matt Meagher and Tim Peek, Inside Edition, for ''Door to Door Insurance,'' an undercover investigation of the exploitation of poor Americans by some insurers
Foreign Television Reporting: Christiane Amanpour and Anita Pratap, CNN, for a revelatory report, “Battle for Afghanistan.”
1995 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:David Rohde, Christian Science Monitor, for reporting on the Srebrenica massacres of Bosnian Muslims by Serbs who jailed and threatened him with execution.
National Reporting:Michael Weisskopf and David Maraniss, Washington Post, for “Inside the Revolution,” a series on the inner workings of the first Republican-controlled House of Representatives in 40 years.
Local Reporting:Elizabeth Llorente, The Record, for exposing inhumane conditions at a privately contracted New Jersey immigrant detention center.
Metropolitan Reporting:Frank Bruni, Nina Bernstein, Joyce Purnick and Lizette Alverez, New York Times, for chronicling multiple failures of child welfare authorities in the beating death of a 6-year-old girl.
Magazine Reporting:Richard Behar, Fortune magazine, for “Stalked by Allstate,” an account of the insurer’s surveillance of employees.
Education Reporting:Steve Stecklow, Wall Street Journal, for a series exposing a fraudulent investment scheme targeting educational institutions.
Business Reporting:Kurt Eichenwald, New York Times, for a series on how corporations, doctors and officials jeopardized kidney dialysis patients.
Health Care Reporting:Chris Adams, New Orleans Times-Picayune, for stories linking state officials to upwards of $30 million in Medicaid fraud.
Medical Reporting:Orange County Register, for "Fertility Fraud," a series revealing the theft and implantation of eggs at prominent research hospitals
Network Television Reporting:Jim Clancy, CNN, for "Rwanda: Cry Justice"examining the impact of the ethnic war between Hutus and Tutsis on women and children.
Local Television Reporting:Tom Grant, KREM, Spokane, for debunking charges against residents falsely implicated in a non-existent child sex ring.
Consumer Reporting:Lea Thompson, Jack Cloherty and Sandra Surles, Dateline/NBC, for “Optical Illusion,” on how Bausch & Lomb marketed identical contact lenses at prices from $9 to $90.
Career Award:John K. Cooley, ABC News, longtime war correspondent
1994 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Barbara Demick, Philadelphia Inquirer, for chronicling the lives of residents on a single street in war-torn Sarajevo.
National Reporting:Joel Brinkley, Deborah Sontag and Stephen Engelberg, New York Times, for documenting broad corruption and waste in the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service.
Local Reporting:Sonia Nazario, Los Angeles Times, for reports on hunger in West Covina that led schools to initiate a student breakfast program.
Metropolitan Reporting:David Armstrong, Shelly Murphy and Stephen Kurkjian, Boston Globe, for a series on deaths from elevator and escalator malfunction.
Magazine Reporting:Allan Nairn, The Nation, for examining how U. S. military intervention in Haiti served to preserve the power of an elite class.
Medical Reporting:Dave Davis and Joan Mazzolini, Cleveland Plain Dealer, for chronicling abuses such as the purchase of unnecessary high-tech equipment in defiance of state law designed to contain costs.
Education Reporting:Olive Talley, Dallas Morning News, for revealing that Texas A & M falsified records in awarding a contract to an associate of a university regent, leading the chancellor and board chair to resign.
Environmental Reporting:Jim Lynch and Karen Dorn Steele, Spokane Spokesman-Review, for showing that much $7.5 billion spent to clean up nuclear radioactive waste site had been wasted.
Political Reporting:Joe Stephens, Kansas City Star, for revealing how Missouri’s House Speaker tried to use legalized riverboat gambling to enrich his friends.
Television Documentary:Steven Emerson and Martin Koughan for “Jihad in America,” a report aired by PBS on radical Islamism in the U. S.
Network Television Reporting:John Martin, Walt Bogdanich and Keith Summa, ABC News “Day One,” for a report accusing tobacco companies of elevating nicotine levels in cigarettes.
Career Award:Philip Hamburger, New Yorker magazine writer
1993 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Keith Richburg, Washington Post, for chronicling the effects of war and famine in Somalia.
National Reporting:Eileen Welsome, Albuquerque Tribune, for revealing that the U.S. conducted plutonium experiments on its own citizens after a seven-year investigation.
Local Reporting:Ying Chan, New York Daily News, for a series on the smuggling of immigrants into New York from China.
Medical Reporting:Larry Keller and Fred Schulte, Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, for detailing credible allegations that some HMOs withheld vital care from patients, some of whom died.
Magazine Reporting:Oliver Sacks, New Yorker magazine, “An Anthropologist on Mars,” a profile of autistic genius Temple Grandin.
Business Reporting:Paul Nyden, Charleston Gazette, for revealing that two West Virginia coal companies failed to pay $200 million in wages, taxes, environmental fines and workers' compensation premiums.
Political Reporting:Springfield State Journal-Register for “Cash Transactions,” a series demonstrating that political contributors routinely received lucrative contracts in Iliinois.
Financial Reporting:Scot J. Paltrow, Los Angeles Times, for exposing massive fraud by Prudential’s Wall Street subsidiary, leading to a $371 million fine, the largest penalty ever imposed on a retail brokerage.
Regional Reporting:Isabel Wilkerson, New York Times, for articles on the devastating impact of severe Mississippi River flooding.
Television Reporting:Christiane Amanpour, CNN, for putting herself at risk in first-hand reports on the war in what had once been Yugoslavia.
Radio Commentary:Daniel Schorr, NPR
Book:David Remnick, "Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire"
Career Award:Richard Dudman, St. Louis Post–Dispatch reporter
1992 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Roy Gutman, Newsday, for documenting human-rights abuses in Bosnia, including mass killings in detention camps.
National Reporting:Gregory Vistica, San Diego Union-Tribune, for revealing how women were harassed at the Navy’s “Tailhook” convention.
Local Reporting:Los Angeles Times for coverage of the riotous response to the acquittal of police filmed beating a black citizen.
Legal Reporting:Marianne Lavelle, Marcia Coyle and Claudia MacLachian, National Law Journal, for finding racial discrimination in the federal response to environmentally hazardous toxic waste pollution.
Magazine Reporting:Lawrence Weschler, New Yorker magazine, for raising questions about reform in post-Communist Czechoslovakia in an article detailing injustices against a resistance leader.
Health Reporting:Seth Rosenfeld, San Francisco Examiner, for revealing that Dow Corning Company knew its breast implants could leak and pose serious health risks to women for many years before the data was public.
Environmental Reporting:John Thor Dahlburg, Los Angeles Times, for examining the effects of haphazard disposal of radioactive material in the former Soviet Union.
Photography:Carlos Guerrero, El Nuevo Herald, for depicting a dazed man holding his last possessions after Hurricane Andrew struck Florida.
Radio Reporting:Tom Gjelten, NPR, for revealing that Serbian militia forces had executed 200 unarmed Bosnian Muslim men.
National Television Reporting:Brian Ross and Rhonda Schwartz, NBC Dateline, for reporting that Wal-Mart sold clothing produced by young children in Indian sweatshops.
Foreign Television Reporting:Chris Wallace, Neal Shapiro and Anthony Radziwill, ABC PrimeTime Live, for a report on the rise of neo-Nazism in Germany and its American connections.
Social Commentary:Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. for "Black Demagogues and Pseudo-Scholars,” a New York Times op-ed essay.
Career Award:Herbert Mitgang, New York Times reporter and critic
1991 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Francis X. Clines, New York Times, for coverage of the breakup of the Soviet Union, and Barbara Crossette, New York Times, for coverage of the assassination of a former Indian Prime Minister felled by a bomb 10 feet from her.
National Reporting:Jeff Taylor and Mike McGraw, Kansas City Star, for exposing shortcomings in U. S. Department of Agriculture programs.
Local Reporting:Holly A. Taylor, Berkshire Eagle, for stories on a hospital’s misuse of funds that led to an administrator's resignation.
Regional Reporting:Dan Barry, John Sullivan and Ira Chinoy, Providence Journal-Bulletin, for exposing fiscal abuse and poor management in Rhode Island’s state-insured credit union
Education Reporting: Jeff Gottlieb, San Jose Mercury News, for revealing upwards of $600 million in overcharges by Stanford University on federal grants.
Economic Reporting:Donald Barlett and James Steele, Philadelphia Inquirer, for a series, "America: What Went Wrong?"
War Reporting:Patrick J. Sloyan, Newsday, for revealing "friendly fire" deaths and allegations of American atrocities during the Persian Gulf War.
National Television Reporting:Glenn Silber, Robert Krulwich, David Fanning and Sharon Tiller, PBS Frontline and the Center for Investigative Reporting, for “The Great American Bailout” on the savings & loan scandal.
Local Television Reporting:Christopher Scholl, KWWL TV, Waterloo, Iowa, for coverage of two environmental hazards, chemical leaks from ammonia plants and leaks of toxins from a landfill into groundwater.
Cultural Reporting:Konstantin Akinsha and Grigorii Kozlov, Russian reporters, for “The Soviet's Stolen Art,” published by ARTNews.
Radio Reporting:Nina Totenberg, NPR, for revealing allegations of sexual harassment against U. S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas and covering the confirmation hearings that examined them.
Special Award:Andrew Schneider and Mary Pat Flaherty, Pittsburgh Press, for demonstrating misuse of federal seizure and forfeiture laws.
Career Award:Claude Fox Sitton, reporter and editor.
1990 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Caryle Murphy, Washington Post, for chronicling the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait as she remained in hiding inside the country.
National Reporting:Susan F. Rasky and David E. Rosenbaum, New York Times, for behind-the-scenes coverage of a critical budget debate.
Regional Reporting:Gayle Reaves, David Hanners and David McLemore, Dallas Morning News, for stories on how drug trafficking impacted two counties.
Metropolitan Reporting:Laurie Bennett, Alan Fisk and Robert Ourlian, Detroit News, for “Hidden Interest,” a series linking Detroit’s decline to the political connections of landlords, contractors and real estate agents.
Local Reporting:Heidi Evans, New York Daily News, for revealing that hospitals failed to report the results of Pap tests to hundreds of women.
Environmental Reporting:Adam Seessel, Independent Weekly, Durham, N. C., for exposing a state cover-up of defects at a hazardous waste plant.
Business Reporting:Dianne Marder, Philadelphia Inquirer, for revealing corporate misconduct in the dismissal of workers falsely accused of theft.
Special Publications:Joseph M. Belth, Insurance Forum, for uncovering deception and promoting reform “despite the continuing hostility of many in the industry."
Network Television Reporting:Peter Jennings, Leslie Cockburn and Tom Yellin, ABC News, for exposing the U. S. role in the resurgence of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.
Documentary Television:Hedrick Smith and Martin Smith, WGBH-TV, Boston, for “Inside Gorbachev's U.S.S.R."
Local Television Reporting:Kevin Kerrigan, Guam Cable Television, for exposing the illegal transfer of public lands into private hands.
Special Award:Globalvision for “South Africa Now,” defying censors to report on the country's turbulence and violence against its black majority.
Career Award:Fred Friendly, television news pioneer
1989 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, New York Times, for coverage of protest in China culminating in the crackdown on Tiananmen Square.
International Reporting:Stephen Engelberg and Michael R. Gordon, New York Times, for disclosing plans by Western companies to facilitate chemical weapon production in third-world nations.
National Reporting:Rick Atkinson, Washington Post, for a series on the secret history of the B-2 Stealth bomber.
Local Reporting:The Hartford Courant for disclosing that police recorded defendants’ conversations with lawyers in violation of their civil rights.
Regional Reporting:Miranda Ewell and David Schrieberg, San Jose Mercury News, for examining the impact of a shortage of qualified court interpreters in Calitfornia.
Local Television Reporting:WCSC, Charleston, S. C., for coverage of Hurricane Hugo.
Investigative Television Reporting:Jonathan Kwitny, WNYC–TV, for “The Kwitny Report”
Network Television Reporting:CBS News, for coverage of the Chinese upheaval.
Radio Reporting:Robert Knight, senior producer of “Undercurrents,” WBAI-FM, New York.
Medical Reporting:John Crewdson, Chicago Tribune, for examining the intensely competitive environment in the scientific and political response to the AIDS crisis
Political Reporting:Andrew Melnykovych, Casper Star-Tribune, for exposing how the federal government colluded with12 oil companies to reduce royalty payments to Wyoming.
Career Award:Fred Hechinger, New York Times education editor
1988 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting: John Kifner, New York Times, for coverage of the Palestinian intifada in Israel.
National Reporting:Keith Schneider, New York Times, for stories on safety issues in the American nuclear weapon production system.
Local Reporting:David Gomez and Patricia Guthrie, Albuquerque Tribune, for a series on the failure of authorities to address rampant alcoholism in Gallup, New Mexico.
Financial Reporting:National Thrift News for coverage of the scandal-plagued savings & loan industry.
Environmental Reporting:Mary Bishop, Roanoke Time & World-News, for a series on questionable practices in Virginia’s pesticide industry.
Local Television Reporting:King 5 TV, Seattle, for stories on race relations in Seattle.
Network Television Reporting:Reporter Brian Ross and producer Ira Silverman, NBC News, for reports on banks laundering cash for drug dealers.
Economic Reporting:Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, The Philadelphia Inquirer, for finding loopholes in the Tax Reform Act of 1986.
Radio Reporting:Patricia Neighmond, NPR, for a series of reprots on an AIDS patient.
Cultural Reporting:Lawrence Weschler, North Point Press, San Francisco, for ''Shapinsky's Karma, Boggs's Bills,'' which examined the relationship between the arts and economics.
Photojournalism:Mary Ellen Mark for “Streetwise,” a book on street children in Seattle, as well as work in Life magazine and Texas Monthly
Career Award:William Shawn, 35-year editor of The New Yorker
1987 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Nora Boustany, Washington Post, for stories on Palestinian refugees and “the breakdown of civilization in Lebanon.”
National Reporting:Mike Masterson, Chuck Cook and Mark N. Trahant, Arizona Republic, for “Fraud in Indian Country,” exposing corruption and mismanagement in the Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Local Reporting:Ron Ridenhour, New Orleans City Business, for uncovering a municipal tax scandal.
Financial Reporting:Daniel Hertzberg and James B. Stewart, Wall Street Journal, for articles on the stock market collapse and its aftermath.
Metropolitan Reporting:The Charlotte Observer for revelation after revelation on television evangelist Jim Bakker’s scandalous behavior.
Local Television Reporting:Margie Nichols, WSMV, Nashville, for two investigative series on insurance.
Network Television Reporting:CNN for “resourceful, uninterrupted reporting and analysis of national and international news.”
Radio Reporting:Larry Bensky, Pacifica Radio, for orchestrating gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Senate’s Iran-Contra hearings.
Sports Reporting:Chris Mortensen, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, for “Ignoring the Rules,” on the subversion of amateurism by sports agents.
Science Reporting:Science News, a bi-weekly magazine.
Political Reporting:Knight-Ridder's Washington Bureau for general excellence.
Foreign Television Reporting:Gordon Manning, NBC, for his role in airing “Changing China'” and '”A Conversation with Mikhail Gorbachev.''”
Magazine Reporting:Roger Rosenblatt, Time magazine, for stories on the Soviet Union.
Career Award:Murray Kempton, columnist and author
1986 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Newsweek magazine for coverage of terrorism in the Middle East.
National Reporting:Andrew Wolfson and Daniel Rubin, Louisville Courier-Journal, for exposing the dubious safety record of military air charter flights,
Local Reporting:Sally Jacobs, Raleigh News and Observer, for stories leading to the indictment of a federal prison guard for suffocating an inmate.
Regional Reporting:Alex Beasley and Rosemary Goudreau, Orlando Sentinel, for “Medicine on Trial,” a series on malpractice insurance.
Financial Reporting:Peter G. Gosselin, Boston Globe, for reports on the fraudulent practices of the First Commodity Financial Corporation
Science Reporting:Science Times, a weekly New York Times section, for ''topical, in-depth reporting that clarified complex issues.'
Environmental Reporting:High Country News, a Colorado-based bi-weekly, for a series of articles on water resources in the West.
International TV Reporting:David Fanning and Martin Smith, PBS Frontline, for detailing supply channels to Nicaraguan rebelsin “Who's Running The War?”
National Television Reporting:Bill Moyers, CBS Reports, for “The Vanishing Family,” a documentary on the proliferation of unwed mothers.
Local Television Reporting:Lee Coppola, WKBW-TV, Buffalo, for “A Lesson in Deceit,'' a report on the operations of a business school.
Book:Richard Kluger, “The Paper: The Life and Death of the New York Herald Tribune"
Career Award:James Reston, New York Times reporter and bureau chief
1985 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Alan Cowell, New York Times, for dispatches from South Africa.
International Reporting:Pete Carey, Katherine Ellison and Lewis M. Simons, San JoseMercury-News, for “Hidden Billions: The Draining of the Philippines.”
National Reporting:Diana Griego and Louis Kilzer, Denver Post, for debunking myths of a scourge in ''The Truth About Missing Children,”
Local Reporting:Stan Jones, Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, for articles on corrupt leasing practices by Alaskan officials.
Metropolitan Reporting:Jimmy Breslin, New York Daily News, for columns on alleged police torture with battery-operated shock devices.
Political Reporting:Frank Greve, Knight Ridder Newspapers, for a report tracing the development of President Reagan's “Star Wars” Initiative.
Business Reporting:Spotlight/Business Team, Boston Globe, for articles linking the Bank of Boston to money laundering for the Mafia.
Medical Reporting:Dr. Lawerence K. Altman, New York Times, for reports from Africa on AIDS.
Criticism:Arthur C. Danto, The Nation, for art reviews.
Radio Reporting:Peter Laufer, NBC Radio News for ''Nightmare Abroad,” reports on Americans incarcerated overseas.
Network Television Reporting:Ted Koppel and Richard N. Kaplan, ABC News "Nightline,” for telecasts from South Africa.
Local Television Reporting:Vic Lee, Craig Franklin, and Brian McTigue, KRON-TV, San Francisco, for a series, “Clean Rooms, Dirty Secrets.”
Career Award:George Tames, New York Times photographer
1984 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Mark Fineman, Philadelphia Inquirer, for coverage of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination and the Bhopal chemical accident that killed more than 2,000 people.
National Reporting:Robert Parry, Associated Press, for revealing that the CIA provided an assassination manual to Iran Contra soldiers.
Local Reporting:Ellen Whitford, Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, for stories leading to the closure of a clinic performing abortions on women who were not pregnant.
Medical Reporting:William R. Ritz and John Aloysious Farrell, Denver Post, for a series of stories on defective anesthesia machines.
Environmental Reporting:Tom Harris and Jim Morris, Sacramento Bee, for citing federal military installations as largely unregulated polluters.
Special Interest Reporting:Lois R. Ember, Chemical & Engineering News,for detailing shoddy scientific research behind U.S. allegations of Soviet germ warfare.
Magazine Reporting:John Vinocur, New York Times Magazine, for “Republic of Fear: 30 Years of General Stroessner's Paraguay,"
News Photography:Ozier Muhammad, Newsday, for depicting a severely malnourished child during his weekly weigh-in at an Ethiopia relief camp.
Special Award:"Amnesty International Report," a global compilation of human rights violations.
Foreign Television Reporting:Michael Buerk, BBC, and Mohammed Amin, VisNews for a report on the famine in Africa aired by NBC.
National Television Reporting:Alex Kotlowitz, Kwame Holman and Susan Ades for “Abortion Clinic Violence," MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, PBS,
Local Television Reporting:Rick Nelson, and Joe Collum, KPRC - TV, Houston, for "Stolen Dreams," a series on a home improvement scam.
Career Award:Walter (Red) Barber, broadcaster
1983 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Joseph Lelyveld, New York Times, for coverage of South Africa.
National Reporting:Robert M. Frump and Timothy Dwyer, Philadelphia Inquirer, for a series on unsafe ships in the U. S. maritime fleet.
Regional Reporting:Paul Lieberman, Celia Dugger, The Atlantic Journal-Constitution, for a series, “Kaolin: Georgia's Lost Inheritance.''
Local Reporting:Jim McGee, The Miami Herald, for a series, ''The Face of Terror,” on anti-Castro Cuban émigrés in Florida and New Jersey.
Foreign Affairs Reporting:Philip Taubman, The New York Times, for revealing the extent of covert military operations in Central America.
Economics Reporting:Dennis Camire and Mark Rohner, Gannett News Service, for a series, “FmHA: The Golden Yoke.”
Consumer Reporting:Marcia Stepanek, Stephen Franklin, The Detroit Free Press, for a series oncorruption in the Farmers Home Administration.
Medical Reporting:Benjamin Weiser, Washington Post, for “As They Lay Dying,” a series on removing hopelessly ill patients from life support.
Network Television Reporting:Don McNeill, CBS News, for reports that provided unusual glimpses of life in the Soviet Union.
Local Television Reporting:John Fosholt and Ward Lucas, KBTV News Denver, for ''Theft by Contract.”
Documentary Television:"Vietnam: A Television History," produced by WGBH, Boston, and aired on the PBS.
Special Interest Reporting:Amicus Journal, published by the National Resources DefenseCouncil
Special Award:Youssef M. Ibrahim, Wall Street Journal, for coverage of OPEC.
Career Award:William L. Shirer, journalist, author and historian
1982 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Thomas L. Friedman and David K. Shipler, New York Times, for coverage of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
National Reporting:Richard Halloran, New York Times, for articles on Defense Department plans for a nuclear war.
Regional Reporting:Jim Henderson, Dallas Times Herald, for a series, ''Racism in the South.''
Metropolitan Reporting:Doug Cumming, Providence Journal-Bulletin, for a series, ''Ticket to Ride, the Commuter Airlines.''
Local Reporting:David Johnston and Joel Sappell, Los Angeles Times, for articles on police spying.
Magazine Reporting:Roger Rosenblatt, Time magazine, for ''Children of War,'' a portrait of youngsters in five war-torn nations.
Financial Reporting:Phillip L. Zweig, American Banker, for reports on the collapse of the Penn Square Bank.
Criticism:Stanley Kauffman, New Republic magazine, for his film reviews.
News Photography:Robby Castro, Associated Press, for depicting an Israeli soldier with a wounded Syrian soldier in Lebanon
Network Television Reporting:CBS News, "CBS Reports: Guatemala"
Local Television Reporting:Dick Gelfman, Theresa Crawford and John Sur, WBAL-TV, Baltimore, for ''Between the Loans,'' a series on the victimization of consumer borrowers.
Documentary Television:Andrew A. Stern, for ''How Much Is Enough: Decision Making in the Nuclear Age,''telecast by PBS.
Special Award:Rod Nordland, Philadelphia Inquirer, for dispatches on the plight of beleaguered residents of East Timor, Vietnam and Cambodia.
1981 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:John Darnton, New York Times, for coverage of the political crisis in Poland.
National Reporting:Seymour M. Hersh, Jeff Gerth and Phillip Taubman, New York Times, for exposing illegal sales of munitions and sophisticated technology in countries hostile to the U. S. by former intelligence agents.
Local Reporting:Orlando Sentinel Star for "The Federal Impact"
Regional Reporting:Stephanie Saul and W. Stevens Ricks, Jackson Clarion-Ledger, for ''Mississippi Gulf Coast: Wide Open and Wicked.''
Consumer Reporting:Phil Norman, Louisville Courier-Journal, for 'Sacred Cows: Power, Politics and Prices in the Milk Industry.'
Magazine Reporting:William Greider, The Atlantic magazine, for
"The Education of David Stockman,"
Science Reporting:Science magazine, published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, for "News and Comment."
Television Documentary:Pierre Salinger, Paris Bureau Chief, ABC News, for "America Held Hostage: The Secret Negotiations."
Television Reporting:Ted Koppel, ABC News, for "Nightline."
Radio Reporting:John Merrow, Institute for Educational Leadership, for "Juvenile Crime and Juvenile Justice" aired by NPR.
Book:Edwin R. Bayley, "Joe McCarthy and The Press"
Career Award:George Seldes, publisher of “In Fact.”
1980 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Shirley Christian, Miami Herald, for coverage of political violence in Guatemala and El Salvador.
National Reporting:Jonathan Neuman and Ted Gup, The Washington Post, for a series on conflicts of interest in awarding of federal contracts.
Local Reporting:Miami Herald, for an investigation of police bias in Miami’s black community.
Regional Reporting:Charlotte Observer, for a series on abuse of workers in the cotton industry.
Editorials:New York Times Editorial Board, for “'keen perspectives on local, national and world developments.”
Commentary:Roger Angell, New Yorker magazine, for essays on sports and other topics.
News Photography:Oscar Sabatta, United Press International, for depicting a clash in San Salvador as bullets flew around him.
Satiric Drawings:Edward Sorel for “style and perceptiveness.”
Cultural Reporting:ARTnews, for investigative reporting in the art world.
National Radio Reporting:NPR for “intelligent and balanced” coverage.
Local Radio Reporting:KMOX, St. Louis, for a series on the impact of crime in black neighborhoods.
Political Reporting:Bill Moyers, "Bill Moyers' Journal,” for a nine-part series, “Campaign Report,” originating on WNET-TV.
Local Television Reporting:Stephen Talbot and Jonathan Dann, KQED-TV, San Francisco, for documenting the potential hazards of nuclear weapons on military bases.
National Television Reporting:Charles Kuralt, CBS News
Special Award:Leonard Karlin, George Polk Awards co-founder
1979 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:John Kifner, New York Times, for reporting from Iran.
National Reporting:Brian Donovan, Bob Wyrick and Stuart Diamond, Newsday, for a series of the gasoline shortage.
Local Reporting:Ed Petykiewicz, Saginaw News, for a series on the county justice system.
Regional Reporting:Jim Adams and Jim Detjen, Louisville Courier-Journal, for attributing serious health and environmental hazards to the illegal dumping of chemical waste.
Metropolitan Reporting:Walt Bogdanich and Walter Johns Jr., Cleveland Press, for exposing profiteering and corruption at a suburban hospital,
Documentary:Jack Willis and Saul Landau, New Time Films, for “Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang.”
National Television Reporting:WRC-TV, Washington, D.C., for "Hairdryers: The Hidden Danger"
Foreign Television Reporting:Ed Bradley, CBS News, for stories in the plight of Cambodian refugees,
Political Reporting:Jack Newfield, Village Voice, for coverage of New York politics.
Commentary:"Notes and Comments," New Yorker magazine
Book:William Shawcross , "Sideshow: Nixon, Kissinger and the Destruction of Cambodia."
News Photography:Name withheld, United Press International, “Firing Squad,”
Special Interest Reporting:Wilbert Rideau and Billy Sinclair for The Angolite, a publication by and for Louisiana State Prison inmates.
Career Award:Alden Whitman, New York Times obituary writer
1978 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:John F. Burns, John Darnton and Michael T. Kaufman, New York Times, for coverage of Africa.
National Reporting:Ronald Kessler, Washington Post, for articles on corruption in the General Services Administration.
Local Reporting:Dallas Times Herald for coverage of deaths of Mexcian-Americans at the hands of Texas lawmen.
Public Service:Jane Shoemaker, Thomas Ferrick, Jr. and William Ecenbarger, Philadelphia Inquirer, for coverage of corrupt state legislators.
Regional Reporting:Southern Exposure, a quarterly published by the Institute for Southern Studies, for articles on regional culture and politics.
Educational Reporting:Chronicle of Higher Education
Television Reporting:Reporter Don Harris and videographer Bob Brown, NBC News, slain in Guyana by members of the Jonestown Peoples Temple before the murder/suicide of 912 men, women and children there.
Film Documentary:"Scared Straight," Golden West Television Productions.
News Photography:Eddie Adams, Associated Press, for coverage of the Rhodesian civil war.
Commentary:Russell Baker, New York Times columnist.
Career Award:Richard S. Salant, president of CBS News
1977 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Robert C. Toth, Los Angeles Times, for coverage of mistreatment of dissidents in the Soviet Union.
National Reporting:Walter Pincus, Washington Post, for revealing Defense Department plans to develop a neutron bomb.
Local Reporting:Len Ackland, Des Moines Register, for articles on “redlining” by realtors to exclude minority homeowners from some areas.
Magazine Reporting:Daniel Lang, New Yorker magazine, for an analysis of German attitudes toward the Third Reich.
Radio, Television Reporting: Barry Lando, producer, CBS “60 Minutes,” of a series of segments.
Local Radio and Television Reporting:John Stossel, WCBS News, for stories on consumer abuse.
Science Reporting:New England Journal of Medicine
Criticism:Peter S. Prescott, Newsweek, for book reviews.
Commentary:Red Smith, New York Times sports columnist
Editorial Cartoons:Jeff MacNelly, Richmond News Leader
News Photography:Eddie Adams, Associated Press, for coverage of forlorn Vietnamese “boat people adrift at sea.”
Career Award:Carey McWilliams, longtime editor of The Nation
1976 and 1975
No George Polk Awards Presented
1974 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Donald Kirk, Chicago Tribune, for dispatches describing South Vietnamese government corruption.
National Reporting:Seymour M. Hersh, New York Times, for revealing extensive illegal domestic CIA surveillance in the Nixon years.
Metropolitan Reporting:Richard Severo, New York Times, for articles on watered-down milk sold by the Dairylea Corporation.
Community Service:William E. Anderson, Harley R. Bierce and Richard C. Cady, Indianapolis Star, for an investigation of police corruption.
Magazine Reporting:Edward M. Brecher and Robert H. Harris, Consumer Reports, for a series, “Is the Water Safe to Drink?”
Television Documentary:"White Paper," NBC News, for examining global malnutrition in "And Who Shall Feed This World?"
News Photography:Werner Baum, Deutsche Presse-Agentur, for a shot of a Hamburg officer killing a bank robber with a knife to a hostage’s throat.
Book:Mary Adelaide Mendelson, "Tender Loving Greed"
Special Award:Sydney H. Schanberg, New York Times, for dispatches from Cambodia of the fall of Phnom Penh to the Khmer Rouge.
1973 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Henry S. Bradsher, Washington Star-News, for coverage of Communist China from his base in Hong Kong.
National Reporting:Andrew H. Malcolm, New York Times, for stories on illegal “no-knock” raids by federal narcotics agents.
Local Reporting:Carol Talley, Joan Hayde, Dover Daily Advance, for disclosing that Morris County officials entertained friends at public expense.
Metropolitan Reporting:James Savage and Mike Baxter, Miami Herald, for articles on illegal political fundraising.
Community Service:William Sherman, New York Daily News, for stories on abuse of the Medicaid system.
Investigative Reporting:Seymour Hersh, New York Times, for revealing secret air raids on Cambodia and U. S. government efforts to conceal them.
Magazine Reporting:John Osborne, The New Republic for “The Nixon Watch,” columns from Washington.
Television Reporting:PBS and its Washington production facility, the National Public Affairs Center for Television, for coverage of the Senate Watergate hearings.
Television Documentary:Jeremy Isaacs, Thames Television, London, for "The World at War," a history of World War II.
News Photography:George Brich, Associated Press, for depicting the return of a repatriated American prisoner of war from Vietnam.
Book:David Wise, "The Politics of Lying: Government Deception, Secrecy, and Power"
Special Award:Donald Barlett, James Steele, United Press, for articles on the world oil shortage.
1972 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Jean Thoraval and Jean Leclerc du Sablon, Agence France-Presse, for articles on life in Hanoi.
National Reporting:Carl Bernstein and Robert Woodward, Washington Post, “for bringing to public attention the Watergate bugging story.”
Local Reporting:Doris Ellen Olsten, Santa Maria Times, for an article on child abuse and its ramifications in the California city.
Metropolitan Reporting:Joseph Martin, Martin McLaughlin and James Ryan, New York Daily News, for disclosures of city payroll padding.
Community Service:Ronald Kessler, Washington Post, for two series, on hospital mismanagement and illegal fees charged to homebuyers.
Investigative Reporting:Jean Heller, Associated Press, for disclosing the U. S. Public Health Service use of black men to experiment on the effects of syphilis.
Magazine Reporting:Frances FitzGerald, New Yorker magazine, for “Annals of War: Vietnam,” later published as the book “Fire in the Lake.”
Television Reporting:Jim McKay, ABC, for reports on the kidnapping and murder of Israeli athletes by Arab terrorists at the Munich Olympics.
Television News:"60 Minutes," CBS, and "First Tuesday," NBC.
News Photography:Huynh Cong Ut, Associated Press, for depicting a girl who had torn off her burned clothing and fleeing a Vietnam napalm strike.
Book:Sanford J. Ungar, "The Papers & The Papers"
Special Award:Lesley Oelsner, New York Times, for a series on New York State’s criminal justice system that provoked change.
1971 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Sydney H. Schanberg, New York Times, for coverage of the India-Pakistan war and Indian troops’ triumphant arrival in Dacca.
National Reporting:New York Times, for resisting White House pressure and publishing “The Pentagon Papers” on U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
Metropolitan Reporting:Donald Barlett and James Steele, Philadelphia Inquirer, for documenting failures of the Federal Housing Administration.
Education Reporting:Joseph Lelyveld, The New York Times, for stories about a fourth-grade class throughout the school year.
Public Service:Frances Cerra, Newsday, for untangling a corporate web leading authorities to terminate “a devious business enterprise.”
Magazine Reporting:Ross Terrill, The Atlantic Monthly, for “600,000: Report from China,” the product of a 7,000-mile tour of the country.
Television Documentary:Correspondent Roger Mudd and producers Peter Davis and Perry Wolff, CBS News, for “The Selling of the Pentagon,” which examined the U. S. military’s public relations program.
Television Reporting:Phil Brady, NBC News, for coverage of the war in East Pakistan.
News Photography:Horst Faas and Michel Laurent, Associated Press, for capturing the torture and murder of suspected East Pakistan collaborators by Bengali guerrillas.
Criticism:Richard Harwood, Washington Post, for “The News Business,” a column evaluating American journalism.
Book:Erik Barnouw, "The History of Broadcasting in the United States"
1970 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Gloria Emerson, New York Times, for stories on the effects of the war in Vietnam on its citizens.
National Reporting:Knight Newspapers in Akron, Detroit and Miami, for an analysis of events before, during and after the violence at Kent State.
Metropolitan Reporting:Richard Oliver, New York Daily News, for stories clearing a black U. S. Marine who had been convicted of rape on Okinawa.
Community Service:Karl Grossman, Long Island Press, for spearheading an investigation into harmful exploitation of sand cliffs on Long Island.
Editorials:James E. Clayton, Washington Post, for raising questions about U.S. Supreme Court nominee G. Harrold Carswell.
Magazine Reporting:Washington Monthly magazine for revealing the scope of U. S. Army spying in civilians in the United States.
Television Reporting:Alan M. Levin, NET, for a documentary on U.S. involvement in underdeveloped nations, “Who Invited Us?”
Freedom of the Press:Walter Cronkite, CBS, for resisting White House efforts to discredit accounts of an atrocity in Vietnam and disclosing them.
News Photography:Kent State University students John Darnell, John Foli and Howard Ruffner for depicting antiwar demonstrators’ deadly confrontation with the Ohio National Guard published by Life magazine.
Criticism:Pauline Kael, The New Yorker, for her film reviews
Book:Otto Friedrich, “Decline and Fall”
Special Award:I.F. Stone, creator of the newsletter, I. F. Stone’s Weekly.
1969 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Henry Kamm, New York Times, for exposing the extent of American financial and military involvement in Laos.
National Reporting:Walter Rugaber, New York Times, for stories on flawed federal testing of prescription drugs endangering consumers.
Metropolitan Reporting:William Federici, New York Daily News, for stories on how government agencies and courts failed abused children.
National TV Reporting:Tom Pettit, NBC, for a documentary on U. S. experimentation with chemical and biological weaponry.
Local TV Reporting:Lee Hanna, WCBS-TV, for a documentary on busing black students from Queens to schools in Great Neck, Long Island.
Magazine Reporting:William Lambert, Life magazine, for revealing that Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas accepted and later returned a suspect $20,000 fee, spurring Fortas’ resignation.
News Photography:Stephen Dawson Starr, Associated Press, for depicting rifle-carrying, bandolier-clad black student protestors at Cornell.
Book:Richard Ellmann (editor),"The Artist as Critic - Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde"
Special Award:Wes Gallagher, Associated Press general manager, for bringing investigative and interpretive reporting to the wire service.
Special Award:Seymour M. Hersh, Dispatch News Service, for exposing a massacre perpetrated by U.S. troops in the Vietnamese village of My Lai.
1968 George Polk Award Winners
International Reporting:David Kraslow and Stuart H. Loory, Los Angeles Times, for disclosing secret peace talks in a failed effort to end the Vietnam War.
National Reporting:Bernard D. Nossiter, Washington Post, for exploring how the aerospace industry might fare in a peacetime economy.
Regional Reporting:James K. Batten and Dwayne Walls, Charlotte Observer, for a study of poverty in North Carolina.
Community Service:David Burnam, New York Times, for articles exploring crime in New York City.
Political Reporting:Martin Arnold, New York Times, for a profile of James Marcus, a New York City official convicted of receiving kickbacks.
Television Reporting:NBC News, CBS News and ABC News, for coverage of the Chicago police attack on demonstrators during the Democratic National Convention.
Magazine Reporting:Norman Mailer, Harper's magazine
News Photography:Edward T. Adams, Associated Press, for capturing South Vietnam’s police chief as he executed a Viet Cong prisoner.
Criticism:John Simon, The New Leader, for film reviews.
Book:Charles Rembar, "The End of Obscenity."
1967 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:R.W. Apple, Jr., New York Times, for “Vietnam: The Signs of Stalemate” and other dispatches.
National Reporting:Clayton Fritchey, Newsday Specials, for a syndicated Washington column.
Local Reporting:J. Anthony Lukas, New York Times, for “The Two Worlds of Linda Fitzpatrick,” profiling a girl from a wealthy Connecticut family murdered on New York’s Lower East Side.
Community Service:Newsday, for revealing how Long Island officials and politicians reaped millions of dollars from corrupt real estate deals.
Television Documentary:ABC News, for “Africa,” a four-hour overview of the continent,
Magazine Reporting:The Paris Review for its “Interview” feature.
News Photography:Catherine Leroy, a 22-year-old French free-lance covering the Vietnam War, for depicting U. S. Marines fighting at Danang and a Navy Corpsman trying to revive a dying Marine.
Criticism:Saul Maloff, Newsweek, for book reviews.
Book:Alan F. Westin, “Privacy and Freedom”
1966 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Harrison E. Salisbury, New York Times, for reporting from Vietnam.
National Reporting:Richard Harwood, Washington Post, for exposing the FBI’s use of unauthorized wiretapping.
Local Reporting:Cal Olston, Fargo Forum, for a series on the Indians of North Dakota.
Interpretive Reporting:Murray Kempton, New York Post columnist
Magazine Reporting:Ramparts magazine for reports that included revelation of secret collaboration between the CIA and NSA.
Criticism:Alfred Kazin for book reviews.
Book:Wilson Follett, “Modern American Usage" (completed posthumously by a group of scholars led by Jacques Barzun)
News Photography:Horst Faas, Associated Press, for depicting Vietnamese women and children caught in a crossfire.
Special Award:Arnold Gingrich, publisher of Esquire
Special Award:The Time Essay, Time magazine, for “factually tight, balanced and absorbing reports.”
1965 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Dan Kurzman, Washington Post, for coverage of a revolt in the Dominican Republic.
Editorial Comment:John B. Oakes, New York Times editorial page editor
Metropolitan Reporting:Barry Gottehrer, New York Herald Tribune, for a series, “City in Crisis.”
Interpretive Reporting:Bernard B. Fall, professor of international relations at Howard University, for articles on the Vietnam War.
Criticism:Susan Sontag, Partisan Review, for theater, film and book reviews.
Television Documentary:Beryl Fox, CBC, for “Mills of the Gods: Vietnam.”
News Photography:James A. Bourdier, Associated Press, for sequential photos of the killing of a youth by a militiaman in Santo Domingo.
Television News:Morley Safer, CBS, for a report on the burning of Cam Ne village in South Vietnam by U.S. Marines.
Caricature:David Levine, New York Review of Books.
1964 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Malcolm W. Browne, Associated Press, for dispatches from Vietnam.
National Reporting:Paul Hope and John Barron, Washington Star, for breaking a story on the ethical lapses of presidential aide Bobby Baker.
Metropolitan Reporting:A.M. Rosenthal, New York Times Metropolitan Editor, for upgrading the paper’s local coverage.
Community Service:Samuel F. Marshall, Cleveland Plain Dealer, for exposing unsavory union practices on the Cleveland waterfront.
Criticism:Robert Brustein, New Republic, for theater reviews.
Radio Reporting:Edward P. Morgan, ABC, for incisive commentary.
Television Reporting:Ted Yates, NBC, for a special report, “Vietnam: It’s a Mad War.”
Book:Oron J. Hale, “The Captive Press in the third Reich.”
1963 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:David Halberstam, New York Times, for coverage of the Vietnam War.
National Reporting:ABC, CBS and NBC, for coverage of the assassination of President Kennedy.
Metropolitan Reporting:Norman C. Miller, Wall Street Journal, for stories on the scandalous bankruptcy of a vegetable oil producer.
Magazine Reporting:Gilbert A. Harrison, editor of the New Republic, for revitalizing the magazine
Criticism:New York Review of Books
News Photography:Roger Asnong, Associated Press, for a photo taken in the Congo.
Special Award:A.H. Raskin, New York Times, foranalysis of a New York newspaper strike.
Special Award:WNEW Radio for training college journalism students.
Special Award:Peter Lyon for a biography of S. S. McClure.
1962 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Dana Adams Schmidt, New York Times, for a first-hand account of the Kurdish revolt in Iraq.
National Reporting:Mary McGrory, Washington Star, for work throughout the year.
Local Reporting:Kitty Hanson, New York Daily News, for a series on nursing homes.
Magazine Reporting:James Baldwin, for “Letter from a Region of My Mind,” published in The New Yorker.
Television Reporting:New York public television station WNDT-TV for general excellence.
News Photography:Hector Rondón, La Republica, Caracas, for depicting a wounded soldier clutching a priest during a Venezuelan uprising.
Book:Michael Harrington, “The Other America: Poverty in the United States.”
Special Award:Morton Mintz, Washington Post. for stories on the fight to keep the drug thalidomide off the market.
Special Award:Theodore E. Kruglak, Polk Awards co-founder and curator, for a book, “The Two Faces of Tass.”
1961 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Morris H. Rubin, Editor of The Progressive
National Reporting:Gerard Piel, Publisher of Scientific American
Local Reporting:Laurence Stern, The Washington Post, for a series on troubled savings & loan institutions in Maryland.
Radio & Television Reporting:Robert Young and Charles Dorkins, NBC“White Paper” for a documentary, “Angola: Journey to a War.”
News Photography:Anonymous photographer, Associated Press, for a photo of a cable car disaster over Mont Blanc in the French Alps.
Community Service:Education Editor Arnold Brophy and reporter Joseph S. Gelmis, Newsday, for a special report, “Long Island Schools Today.”
Special Award:Cartoonist Jules Feiffer “for his insights into the frustrations of modern man.”
1960 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:James Morris, The Manchester Guardian’s roving correspondent.
National Reporting:John T. Cunniff, Associated Press, for stories on an economic boycott against Negroes in Tennessee.
Metropolitan Reporting:Editor William R. Clark, and reporter Alexander Milch, Newark Evening News, for a series on fraudulent sales practices.
Radio & Television Reporting:Albert Wasserman and Robert Young, NBC, for a program on sit-ins in Nashville.
News Photography:Yasushi Nagao, Mainichi Newspapers, Japan, for capturing the assassination of Japanese socialist leader Inejiro Asanuma.
Community Service:The Village Voice
Special Award:Douglass Cater, The Reporter magazine
1959 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:A.M. Rosenthal, New York Times, for reporting from Poland that led the government there to expel him.
National Reporting:Nathaniel Gerstenzang, New York Times, for directing coverage of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s U.S. visit.
Metropolitan Reporting:William Haddad and Joseph Kahn, New York Post for exposing abuses in New York City’s slum-clearance program.
Radio & Television Reporting:Writer Av Westin and narrator Howard K. Smith, CBS, for a documentary, “The Population Explosion.”
Magazine Reporting:The Times of London Literary Supplement for “The American Imagination,” a special issue appraising American culture.
News Photography:Rangaswamy Satakopan, Associated Press, for capturing Indian Prime Minister Nehru’s look of concern at a time of border issues with China and a political split at home.
Book:Wilbur Schramm, Institute for Communication Research, Stanford University, “One Day in the World’s Press: 14 Great Newspapers on a Day of Crisis.”
1958 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Chet Huntley and Reuven Frank, NBC, for the documentary, “Argentine Crisis.”
National Reporting:Richard L. Strout, Christian Science Monitor, for interpretive reporting from Washington.
Metropolitan Reporting:William Haddad, New York Post, for a series on the New York City’s failure to address slum conditions.
Television Reporting:Gabe Pressman, WRCA-TV, for coverage of New York City.
Radio Reporting:Jay McMullen, CBS, for a story on juvenile crime, “Who Killed Michael Farmer?”
Magazine Reporting:Marya Mannes, The Reporter magazine, for commentary on radio and television policies and programs.
News Photography:Paul Schutzer, Life magazine, for depicting riots during Vice President Richard Nixon’s visit to Venezuela
Community Service:Brooklyn Heights Press, for addressing neighborhood issues.
Book:Justice William O. Douglas, “The Right of the People.”
Special Award:Samuel Blackman, New York City AP Bureau Chief
Special Award:Walter Sullivan, New York Times, for coverage of the International Geophysical Year.
1957 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Harrison E. Salisbury, New York Times, for a series on life in Soviet satellite nations in Eastern Europe.
National Reporting:Relman Morin, Associated Press, for an eyewitness account of rioting at Central High School in Little Rock, Ark.
Metropolitan Reporting:Mitchel Levitas, New York Post, for a series exposing exploitation of Puerto Rican workers by labor racketeers.
Radio & Television Reporting:CBS.
Magazine Reporting:Correspondent Edmund Stevens and photographer Phillip Harrington, Look magazine, for depicting life in the Soviet Union.
News Photography:Jack Jenkins, United Press, for capturing a crowd of menacing students and adults jeering at a back girl walking to class at Little Rock High School.
Community Service:Edward Wakin, New York World-Telegram and Sun Brooklyn Editor
Special Award: Richard D. Heffner, producer/moderator of “The Open Mind” television discussion program on WRCA-TV in New York.
Book:Edmund C. Arnold, “Functional Newspaper Design.”
1956 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Hal Lehrman, free-lance correspondent, for interpretive stories on the Middle East
National Reporting: Jack Lotto, International News Service, for a series exposing Soviet pressure on refugees in the United States.
Metropolitan Reporting:Phil Santora, New York Daily News, for a series on the relationship between teen-age drinking and auto accidents.
Suburban Reporting:Mel Elfin, Long Island Press, for a series exposing unethical practices in the home mortgage industry.
Radio & Television Reporting:CBS, for a special report on developments in Hungary, Poland and the Middle East.
News Photography:Jack Young, United Press, for “Attack on Newsman,” depicting the leader of a racist mob in Tennessee.
Special Award:Emanuel R. Freedman, New York Times Foreign News Editor, for directing coverage of Hungary, Poland and the Middle East.
Special Award:Endre Marton, Associated Press, and his wife, Ilona Nyilas, United Press, for defying a regime that had imprisoned them to report from Hungary.
1955 George Polk Award Winners
International Reporting:Thomas J. Hamilton, New York Times United Nations bureau chief, for coverage of the UN.
Foreign Reporting:Barrett McGurn, New York Herald Tribune, for coverage of uprisings in North Africa.
National Reporting:Milton Mayer, The Reporter magazine, for an article on the imprisonment of Chicago mob boss Roger Touhy on false charges.
Metropolitan Reporting:Fern Marja, Peter J. McElroy and William Dufty, New York Post, for a series leading to the exoneration of two youths imprisoned for rape.
Suburban Reporting:Bob Greene, Newsday, for a series on labor racketeering on Long Island.
Education Reporting:Gertrude Samuels, New York Times Magazine, for an article on school desegregation in Baltimore.
Radio & Television Reporting:NBC for a documentary, “Assignment India.”
Magazine Reporting:William Attwood, Look magazine, for “A New Look at Americans.”
News Photography:William Sauro, United Press, for capturing Helen Keller “listening’” to Eleanor Roosevelt with her fingertips.
Community Service:Redbook magazine for articles by Selwyn James on “anti-Negroism” and Robert Gorman on charity-related gambling.
1954 George Polk Award Winners
International Reporting:Thomas J. Hamilton, New York Times United Nations Bureau Chief, for coverage of the UN.
Foreign Reporting:George Weller, Chicago Daily News, for a series on Turkey.
National Reporting:Luther Huston, New York Times, for coverage of the U. S. Supreme Court’s school desegregation decision.
Metropolitan Reporting:James McGlincy and Sydney Mirkin, New York Daily News, for feature writing.
Suburban Reporting:Thomas Finnegan, Long Island Star-Journal, for a series on condemnation proceedings in Astoria, Queens.
Wire Service Reporting:Executive Editor Alan J. Gould and reporters Don Whitehead, Saul Pett, Ben Price, Relman Morir and Jack Bell, Associated Press, for a series on Senator Joseph McCarthy.
Radio & Television Reporting:Eric Sevareid, CBS, for his weekly telecast, “American Week,” and other coverage.
Television Documentary:Henry Salomon, Jr., NBC, for “Three, Two, One, Zero,” a documentary on atomic power,
News Photography:Maurice Johnson, International News Photos, for a picture of Senator Joseph McCarthy and his aide, Roy Cohn.
Special Page:Jacob Jacowitz, editor of the school pages of the New York World-Telegram and Sun
Community Service:WNYC Radio, for public service broadcasts.
Special Award:Dan Parker, New York Mirror, for exposing racketeering in professional boxing.
Special Award:Leo Rosten, Look magazine, for “Is Fear Destroying Freedom?”
1953 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Jim Lucas, Scripps-Howard Newspapers, for dispatches from Korea.
National Reporting:James Reston, New York Times, for “shedding light on complex problems of government and diplomacy.”
Metropolitan Reporting:William Longgood, New York World-Telegram & Sun, for exposing loopholes in rent control laws that allowed landlords to overcharge tenants.
News Photography:Peter Stackpole, Life magazine, for an underwater photo of a diver’s “tragic attempt to set a new record for aqualung descent.”
Community Service:Margaret Ryttenberg, Newsday, for a series “on the pressing need for medical facilities in booming Long Island.”
Criticism:John Crosby, New York Herald Tribune, for offering “direction to the stumbling medium of television.”
Business Reporting:Business Week, for transforming “business reporting from obscure and narrow writing to popular and broad appeal.”
Special Award:Leonard Engel for free-lance newspaper and magazine articles on major scientific developments.
Special Award:“Weekend-Sunday Newspaper of the Air,” an NBC program produced and hosted by Merrill Mueller.
1952 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Marguerite Higgins, New York Herald Tribune, for articles from behind enemy lines in Korea and other nations.
National Reporting:A.H. Raskin, New York Times, for coverage of labor.
Metropolitan Reporting:Edward J. Mowery, New York World-Telegram and Sun, for a seven-year campaign to exonerate a man serving life in prison for a 1941 murder he did not commit.
News Photography:Bob Wendlinger, New York Mirror, for “Hands of Life, Face of Death,” a photo of a man escaping the grasp of a priest and jumping to his death from the George Washington Bridge.
Community Service:Brooklyn Eagle, for a series exposing deteriorating housing conditions in Brooklyn.
Criticism:Jack Gould, New York Times, for radio and television reviews.
Special Award:The Reporter magazine for a series, “The Wiretappers.”
Special Award:Edward R. Murrow, CBS, for a Christmas program from Korea and other “See It Now” telecasts.
Special Award:New York Daily News, for a series on uncollected refunds that led to the return of more than $10 million to 255,141 U.S. taxpayers.
1951 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Milton Bracker and Virginia Lee Warren, New York Times, for stories on the government seizure of an Argentine newspaper.
National Reporting:Jay Nelson Tuck, New York Post, for report on a Florida sheriff’s shooting of two black men.
Metropolitan Reporting:Richard Carter, New York Compass, for a series spotlighting racketeering on New York’s waterfront
Suburban Reporting:Yonkers Herald-Statesman, “for continued militancy on behalf of civic betterment.”
Education Reporting:Kalman Siegel, The New York Times, for a two-part report on the stifling of academic freedom in the nation’s colleges.
Science Reporting:Alton Blakeslee, Associated Press, for simplifying highly technical and complex subjects in his “March of Science” column.
Religious Reporting:Ann Elizabeth Price, New York Herald Tribune, “for bringing unusual interest to an ordinarily quiet news beat”
Sports Reporting:Ben Gould, Brooklyn Eagle, for his part in exposing the widespread bribery of college basketball players.
Community Service:New York World-Telegram and Sun, for a series on smoke abatement and beach pollution.
Special Award:Edward R. Murrow, CBS, for deploying “a new technique in visual journalism” in his weekly “See It Now” program.
Special Award:Sponsor Magazine, for a three-part series examining the efforts of “Red Channels” to rid U. S. airwaves of suspected Communists
1950 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Homer Bigart, New York Herald Tribune, for coverage of the Korean War.
National Reporting:Ira H. Freeman, New York Times, for a series on residents displaced by construction of a nuclear bomb plant in South Carolina.
Metropolitan Reporting:Fern Marja, New York Post,for a series on the two-year Ellis Island detainment of a German-born World War II war-bride.
Suburban Reporting:Seymour Marks, Long Island Daily Press
Wire Service Reporting:Don Whitehead, Associated Press, for dispatches from Korea that also earned him the Pulitzer Prize.
Education Reporting:Fred Hechinger and Judith Crist, New York Herald Tribune
Sports Reporting:Red Smith, New York Herald Tribune, for his column, “Views of Sports.”
Science Reporting:George Keaney, New York World-Telegram and Sun
Weekly Newspaper Reporting: New Canaan Advertiser, for a campaign to increase moderate-income housing.
Community Service:Newsday, for a special issue on a Long Island Railroad wreck on Thanksgiving Eve that killed 78 riders in Richmond Hill, Queens.
Special Award:New York Daily News Straw Poll, for analysis of the 1950 New York City mayoral election
1949 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:A. T. Steele, Christopher Rand, Allen Raymond, Margaret Parton and Dorothy Brandon, New York Herald Tribune, for series, “Asia’s Red Riddle.”
National Reporting:Ted Poston, New York Post, for a series on “Discrimination in Florida.”
Suburban Reporting:Fred Hechinger, Bridgeport Herald, for a series, “The Inside Story of Connecticut Schools.”
Wire Service Reporting:Kingsbury Smith, International News Service, for articles arising out of an exchange of letters with Josef Stalin.
Education Reporting:Lester Grant, New York Herald Tribune, for a series, “The Challenge of Cancer.”
Science Reporting:William Laurence, New York Times, for coverage of the discovery of cortisone, a boon to arthritis sufferers.
Special Award:Don Hollenbeck, CBS, for his study of newspapers on his broadcast, “CBS Views the Press.”
Community Service:Edward Reid, Brooklyn Eagle, for an expose of gambling and corruption in Brooklyn.
1948 George Polk Award Winners
Foreign Reporting:Homer Bigart, New York Herald-Tribune, for completing George Polk’s mission to find and interview the Greek rebel general Markos Vafiadis.
Metropolitan Reporting:Malcolm Jonson, the New York Sun, for a series on the New York waterfront that also won the Pulitzer Prize.
Education Reporting:Benjamin Fine, New York Times Education Editor
Suburban Reporting:Larry Andrews, Nassau Review-Star.
Public Welfare Reporting:Albert Deutsch, The Daily Compass (formerly PM), for coverage of mental illness.
Community Service: Brooklyn Eagle for “The Big Stench," a series resulting in elimination of odors from landfill operations in Marine Park.