Long Island University Announces 67th Annual George Polk Awards In Journalism
Coverage of Heroin Addiction, Human Rights, and Sexual Assault Among 17 Winners in 16 Categories
BROOKLYN, N.Y., Feb. 14, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Long Island University (LIU) announced the winners of the 67th annual George Polk Awards in Journalism today, honoring reporters who advanced vital national conversations on race and gender relations with their masterful investigative reporting in 2015. The winners of this year’s George Polk Awards reported on such momentous stories as the deadly use of force by police, the re-segregation of America’s public schools, and the difficulties women face in pursuing accusations of rape, subjects that made headlines across the country this past year. Other winners among the 17 awards in 16 categories showed how companies sidestep class action suits by consumers and how foreign workers in Asia are brutally conscripted to work in the seafood industry on ships and on a remote island.
Reporting by the recipients also upended claims from a new, heavily invested company about an innovative blood test, exposed a drug lab’s profiteering from deceptive marketing of dubious pain creams and highlighted the agonizing situation of heroin addicts denied access to a proven treatment. Still other winners documented little control or accountability in a celebrated American military unit and snapped front-line photos of damage done to an Afghani hospital by a U.S. airstrike.
Read more at LIU.
Two education stories won awards. Check them out:
Radio Reporting: Nikole Hannah-Jones, “The Problem We All Live With” broadcast on This American Life. It’s a study of the re-segregation of American education.
Education Reporting: Cara Fitzpatrick, Lisa Gartner, and Michael LaForgia of the Tampa Bay Times for “Failure Factories, ” a deeply researched series that traced the decline of black student achievement in Pinellas County to a 2007 school board rezoning decision that effectively re-segregated five schools.
Read about the rest of the winners at LIU.