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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contacts:
Joel Kaplan, Contest Committee chairman, 315-443-1429, jkkaplan@syr.edu
IRE offices:
Len Bruzzese, Deputy Director, 573-882-2042, len@ire.org
Brant Houston, Executive Director, 573-882-2042 brant@ire.org

* Complete listings of winning news organizations and journalists, as well as finalists.
* Videostreamed excerpts from television category winners.

March 15, 2002

COLUMBIA, Mo. - Reporters from The Washington Post took top honors in the 2001 IRE Awards, Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. announced today.

Sari Horwitz, Scott Higham and Sarah Cohen won a prestigious IRE medal for exploring the deaths of children in the District of Columbia.

The annual awards of IRE - a 4,200 member professional organization - recognize outstanding investigative work in print, broadcast, online media and for work furthering freedom of information.

Other winners include those receiving IRE certificates: 60 Minutes, Chicago Tribune, American RadioWorks/Minnesota Public Radio and NPR News, Pocono Record, Yakima Herald-Republic, WFAA-Dallas/Fort Worth, Dayton Daily News, and authors James Bamford and Duff Wilson. A student award went to University of Missouri School of Journalism graduate Mary Jo Sylwester, now at the Center for Public Integrity.

Post staff writers Horwitz and Higham and database editor Cohen discovered that 229 children died during a seven-year period after their dangerous family situations came to the attention of the district's child protection system. Despite strict confidentiality laws, the team pieced together records for 180 of those deaths and found that one in five - mostly infants and toddlers - lost their lives after government workers failed to take key preventive action or placed the children in unsafe homes or institutions.

"The project, which has resulted in wide-ranging reforms, answers the highest call of investigative journalism," the IRE Award judges said in granting the medal.

The Freedom of Information Award went to author James Bamford for his book "Body of Secrets," which details the inner workings of the secretive National Security Agency. The book continues his groundbreaking work in "The Puzzle Palace: A Report on America's Most Secret Agency," which won a 1982 IRE book award.

"With this work, Bamford upholds the ideals of FOIA [the Freedom of Information Act] - that citizens ought to be able know what their government really is doing," the judges said. "Bamford proves that even with America's most secretive agency, there's a place for freedom of information."

An IRE Certificate was awarded to Mike Wallace, Paul Gallagher, Charles Fitzgerald and Robert Zimet of CBS News 60 Minutes for exposing a pervasive plot by military personnel to falsify records of the Osprey aircraft. "There is little doubt this investigative report contributed to the safety of Marines," the judges said.

Other certificate winners:

Stephen Smith, Michael Montgomery, Bill Buzenberg, Deborah George and Adriatik Kelmendi of American RadioWorks/Minnesota for "Burning the Evidence," a significant investigation on how Serbian forces, under the command of Slobodan Milosevic, covered up war crimes by incinerating the remains of hundreds of ethnic Albanians in an industrial furnace. American Radio Works is the documentary project of Minnesota Public Radio and NPR News.

Duff Wilson for "Fateful Harvest" (HarperCollins). His book details how fertilizer tainted with heavy metals, dioxins and radioactive waste is being spread on farms, yards and gardens.

Valeri Williams, Meridith Schucker, Jesus Hernandez and photo and graphics staffs of WFAA-Dallas/Fort Worth for "Lives at Risk: An Emergency Room Investigation," a riveting series of investigations detailing a doctor's involvement in the deaths of patients at a county-funded hospital.

Ken Armstrong, Steve Mills and Maurice Possley of Chicago Tribune for "Cops and Confessions and The Roscetti Case," which exposed a system of policing that extracts hundreds of faulty confessions from murder suspects.

Christine Vasconez, Doug Harris, Mike Wagner and Russell Carollo of the Dayton Daily News for "The Foreign Game," a series detailing the unusual world of imported high school sports stars.

Tom Roeder, Jesse A. Hamilton and Stephanie Earls of the Yakima Herald-Republic for "Trapped at Thirtymile" ,coverage of a catastrophic fire that resulted in the Forest Service re-writing its own conclusions about the events that led to the deaths of four firefighters.

Matt Birkbeck of the Pocono Record for "A Price Too High," a series exposing a real estate scheme preying on low-income and minority homebuyers.

Lisa Davis and John Mecklin of the SF Weekly for "Fallout," which revealed how a Bayfront property about to be turned over to the city by the Navy may be far more contaminated with radioactive waste than current cleanup plans acknowledge.

MaryJo Sylwester, University of Missouri graduate student, for "A Flood of Problems." Her package for The Missourian exposed problems with a local storm water permitting system, the consequences for residents and why readers should care.
The awards will be presented during a June 1 luncheon at the IRE Annual Conference in San Francisco. The conference, scheduled for May 30-June 2 at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco, will feature many of the winners speaking about the techniques they used to develop their stories.

IRE, founded in 1975, is a nonprofit professional organization dedicated to training and supporting investigative journalists. It is based at the Missouri School of Journalism.

Contest entries are screened and judged by other working journalists. The final judges this year included two IRE board members and several IRE members selected by the membership and the board president.

Copies of all contest entries are available from the IRE Resource Center (www.ire.org/resourcecenter). The center can be reached via e-mail at rescenter@ire.org or by calling 573-882-3364.

* Complete listings of winning news organizations and journalists, as well as finalists.
* Videostreamed excerpts from television category winners.