2011 Bob Butler and Jessica Williams report for The Lens - “Each day, after wrapping up work as a streetcar operator, Kisa Holmes drives by to check on the house she bought in the Upper 9^thWard just weeks before Hurricane Katrina – a house that now sits empty, gutted and deteriorating because she can’t afford to fix it…. Before making the first mortgage payment, Holmes, her husband and their five children fled 90 miles to Kentwood to escape Katrina. Like many others, she thought she’d be home in a couple of months.

She was fully insured, including flood coverage, and believed that she would soon have the money to repair the house. But she was unprepared for the push from her bank to use her insurance money to pay off her mortgage, with which she complied, thinking it was in her best interest. Instead, it made the Holmes family the free-and-clear owners of a nearly worthless piece of property. Worse, that decision hampered the family’s ability to take full advantage of key federal disaster recovery money…. Though more complicated than most, Holmes’ story is just one of many behind the more than 40,000 blighted homes across the city, despite concerted and growing anti-blight efforts.”

2011 Rob Gurwitt of the Connecticut Health I-Team – “Each time John Dempsey Hospital performs a cardiac valve surgery, the hospital receives a median payment of $82,589 from Medicare – about $23,000 more than the median paid to Danbury Hospital for the same surgical procedure.

A pacemaker implant at Dempsey, part of the University of Connecticut, costs Medicare about $20,000—$2,200 more than Yale-New Haven, $3,500 more than Bridgeport Hospital and $6,300 more than the Hospital of Central Connecticut.

Federal reimbursements for surgical procedures swing widely among Connecticut hospitals, a C-HIT analysis of available Medicare data shows, with Dempsey receiving a higher rate than other hospitals for most procedures. Yale-New Haven, Bridgeport and Windham hospitals also were consistently among the top five in Medicare reimbursements, according to the data.

Experts say the variation in Medicare payments is due to a variety of factors, including the type of hospital (teaching or non-teaching), regional wages and salaries, the income mix and sickness of patients and the number of tests and services provided…

…[T]here are other factors that push up costs at some hospitals, including a higher use of intensive-care beds, more visits by multiple doctors, and more tests such as MRIs and CT scans. Those treatment variables are attracting increasing scrutiny in Connecticut, as the state moves towards implementing health care reform and examines how hospitals are paid for services.”

2011 - As Hella Winston reports for The Jewish Week, “.. a Jewish religious tribunal [is] operating as a kind of shadow justice system, adjudicating sexual abuse cases without the involvement of law enforcement… It is a world where victims and perpetrators alike are subjected to threats of social ostracism and, in some cases, physical harm for non-compliance with the ‘system.’ … ‘Most victims of abuse and parents in Lakewood are afraid to speak up because [they fear being threatened by rabbis],’ Debbie Rudin, a victim of childhood sexual abuse who now lives in Lakewood, told The Jewish Week.”

 2011 Wanjohi Kabukuru – From Kenya, Kabukuru reports for NewAfrican Magazine: “Malaria kills more people in Africa than HIV-Aids. Therefore attempts to produce a vaccine against the disease should normally be received with joy. But no. The trial stages of a new vaccine, RTS,S have raised a storm in Africa.” The criticism centers on clinical trials of the vaccine that are conducted on infants.

2011 Guy Taylor – Reports in Salon.com how the federal government has been rubber stamping Big Pharma’s requests to increase production of the much-abused prescription drug, Oxycodone: “One of the most disturbing things about the prescription pain pill abuse epidemic is that it could have been avoided, or at least mitigated, if the DEA had fulfilled the responsibilities vested in it under federal law. That’s the view of Gene Haislip, who until his retirement in 1997 spent 17 years as head of one of the least-publicized law enforcement entities in Washington: the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Office of Diversion Control.”

2011 – McNelly Torres reports for the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting: As part of the 2009 economic stimulus package, millions of federal dollars flowed to Florida’s public school districts. The money was intended to benefit low-performing schools as way of closing the so-called achievement gap. Starved for cash as a result of plummeting real estate values and dwindling property tax revenues, Florida school districts used these hundreds of millions to put off the inevitable — difficult budget cuts.

Now, two years after the first stimulus dollar rolled in, Florida’s public school system is learning difficult financial lessons. School districts throughout Florida are laying off teachers, closing programs and scrambling to identify other significant cost-saving measures — all problems made worse by the fact that Florida’s school districts used the stimulus money in large measure to delay needed cuts.

2011 Kristin Palitza – At the height of the tobacco harvest season, Malawi’s lush, flowing fields are filled with young children picking the big green-yellow leaves. Some can count their age on one hand. Since the handling of the leaves is done largely without protective clothing, workers absorb up to 54 milligrams of dissolved nicotine daily through their skin, equal to the amount of 50 cigarettes, according to researchers at College of Public Health at the University of Kentucky, Lexington.

And more than 90% of Malawi’s tobacco is bought by two US-based leaf buyers, Universal Corporation and Alliance One International, which resell it to international tobacco firms. Their main clients are two of the world’s biggest cigarette manufacturers, Philip Morris (Marlboro) and British American Tobacco (Lucky Strike). Consequently, Malawi’s tobacco is found in the blend of almost every cigarette smoked in the west. Read the full report in the Guardian. Photography by Kristin Palitza.

2011 The book Stealth of Nations, by the winner of the Robert I. Friedman award, Robert Neuwirth was published - When we think of the informal economy, we tend to think of crime: prostitution, gun running, drug trafficking. Stealth of Nations opens up this underground realm, showing how the worldwide informal economy deals mostly in legal products and is, in fact, a ten-trillion-dollar industry, making it the second-largest economy in the world, after that of the United States. Having penetrated this closed world and persuaded its inhabitants to open up to him, Robert Neuwirth makes clear that this informal method of transaction dates back as far as humans have existed and traded, that it provides essential services and crucial employment that fill the gaps in formal systems, and that this unregulated market works smoothly and effectively, with its own codes and unwritten rules.

Combining a vivid travelogue with a firm grasp on global economic strategy—along with a healthy dose of irreverence and skepticism toward conventional perceptions—Neuwirth gives us an eye-opening account of a world that is always operating around us, hidden in plain sight.

2011 The Chicago Reporter - Its investigation of the State of Illinois’ contracts with minority and disabled business owners finds limited impact, missed goals. Photo by: Jason Reblando.

“Empty Jackpot“: Illinois celebrates its program to steer state contracts to businesses owned by minorities, women and people with a disability. But a closer look shows the state may not be fulfilling its goals.

“Less Shelter“: The vast majority of state money marked for going to disabled business owners isn’t going to people with disabilities. Instead, 98 percent of that money goes to “sheltered workshops”—a group operation usually run by a nonprofit where disabled people can work in a supervised setting.

2011 Jarrett Murphy – In the September/October issue of City Limits, an investigative magazine based in New York City, Murphy explores whether the New York Fire Department has learned lessons from Sept. 11 and – as important – after firefighters die in routine fires.  “The prospect of another Sept. 11 is as unlikely as it is terrifying. Fires in basements and factories and two-story homes, however, will happen all the time. So it’s important to also learn the lessons taught by the 43 other FDNY fatalities that occurred in the decade before and the decade since the World Trade Center disaster. Since 2006, City Limits has been using the Freedom of Information Law to gather official FDNY reports on line-of-duty deaths from 1991 to the present. These documents and others, along with interviews with current and former FDNY personnel, fire experts and kin of the deceased, point to a set of factors that contributed to those deaths, and the many reports on Sept. 11 detail the lessons that disaster had to teach. FDNY reports and interviews with experts indicate whether the lessons from these many fatalities have led to meaningful change in New York City…” Read the series. Photo: Marc Fader.

2011 Scott Carney, Jason Miklian, and Kristian Hoelscher -  “Felani wore her gold bridal jewelry as she crouched out of sight inside the squalid concrete building. The 15-year-old’s father, Nurul Islam, peeked cautiously out the window and scanned the steel and barbed-wire fence that demarcates the border between India and Bangladesh. The fence was the last obstacle to Felani’s wedding, arranged for a week later in her family’s ancestral village just across the border in Bangladesh.” Read the full report: Fortress India: Why is Delhi building a new Berlin Wall to keep out its Bangladeshi neighbors? in Foreign Policy. Photo courtesy of Kristian Hoelscher.

 2011 Trevor Aaronson - For Mother Jones, Aaronson writes: “The FBI has built a massive network of spies to prevent another domestic attack. But are they busting terrorist plots-or leading them?” From his article, The Informants: “Here’s how it works: Informants report to their handlers on people   who have, say, made statements sympathizing with terrorists. Those names   are then cross-referenced with existing intelligence data, such as   immigration and criminal records. FBI agents may then assign an   undercover operative to approach the target by posing as a radical.   Sometimes the operative will propose a plot, provide explosives, even   lead the target in a fake oath to Al Qaeda. Once enough incriminating   information has been gathered, there’s an arrest—and a press conference announcing another foiled plot. If this sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because such sting operations are a fixture in the headlines. Remember the Washington Metro bombing plot? The New York subway plot? The guys who planned to blow up the Sears Tower? The teenager seeking to bomb a Portland Christmas tree lighting? Each of those plots, and dozens more across the nation, was led by an FBI asset.

Over the past year, Mother Jones and the Investigative  Reporting  Program at the University of California-Berkeley have  examined  prosecutions of 508 defendants in terrorism-related cases, as  defined by  the Department of Justice…”

Click here for the main article, a searchable database of terrorism prosecutions, a sidebar on the making of an FBI superinformant, a glossary of terms, and a transcript of a conversation secretly recorded by an informant. Click here for the National Public Radio report on Aaronson’s findings.

 2011 Mary Lou Simms – For McClatchy-Tribune News Service, Simms reports on the U. S. Department of Agriculture program that exterminates wild birds and animals: ”Wildlife Services is the little-known branch of the USDA deemed largely responsible for geese slaughters coast to coast. Buried under several layers of bureaucracy, Wildlife Services prefers to stay under the radar. However, a copy of a 2010 report obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request indicates that U.S. taxpayers are subsidizing a $126.5 million program that exterminates more than 4 million wild animals annually, including thousands of geese. The agency also has come under fire for its use of sodium cyanide, a poison placed in devices called M-44′s, which its literature says is used to control coyotes, wild dogs and foxes preying on livestock.” Click here for the full report and here for her report on humane alternatives.

2011 Isabel Morales and Julian Resendiz with photojournalist William Fernando Martinez – Bogota, COLOMBIA — The death of her 20-year-old son at the hands of Colombia’s military was but the beginning of Gloria Mancera’s ordeal. In the four years that followed, Mancera, 44, fled her small farm in the town of Granada with her daughters in tow, changed her name, slept on the floor of a relative’s house in Bogota and scavenged meals from trash bins. This happened, she says, because she questioned the army’s account of her son’s death. Aurelio Gallego Mancera was shot dead on March 12, 2007 by soldiers from the army’s Mobile Unit 12 based in Granada, about 90 miles from the capital. The military said the man was a FARC guerrilla killed in a firefight.

2011 Jason Berry - In “Render Unto Rome: The Secret Life of Money in the Catholic Church,” Jason Berry exposes the secrecy and deceit that run counter to the values of the Catholic Church. There is no doubt that historically the Catholic Church has been one of the great engines of charity in history. But what happens to tens of millions of dollars turned over to officials at the highest ranks, no questions asked, for their discretionary use? The Vatican has never revealed its true net worth; the controversial Vatican Bank is off the books – a black hole in the annual financial statement. Today the church bears scrutiny by virtue of the vast amounts of money (nearly $2 billion in the United States alone) paid out to victims of clergy abuse. Amid mounting diocesan bankruptcies, bishops have been selling off whole pieces of the infrastructure – churches, schools, commercial properties – while the nephew of one of the Vatican’s most powerful cardinals engaged in a lucrative scheme to profiteer off the enormous downsizing of American church wealth. Before “Render Unto Rome,” no major book has examined the church’s financial underpinnings and practices with such journalistic force.

Garry Wills, in his review for the New York Times, writes “Jason Berry, the reporter who broke several of the priest abuse scandals of recent times, finds the same pattern of deception, denial and subterfuge in the church’s handling of money as in its treatment of pedophiles.”

 2011  Sue Sturgis - In a five part series published by Facing South, Sturgis reports that one year after the BP oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, a growing number of cleanup workers and coastal residents are reporting debilitating health problems associated with exposure to toxic chemicals in crude oil and dispersants. Faced with inaction from the federal government, victims are organizing a grassroots movement to demand action. The investigation also examined the broader problem of the energy industry’s impact on community health in the Gulf and the political power wielded by oil companies and other industry interests to thwart regulatory reform.

 2011 City Limits – In the May/June issue of City Limits, Kelly Virella examines what sexual abuse reports reveal about how New York’s prisons track and investigate sexual misconduct, the history of legal wrangling and labor rules behind prison policies, and the nuances of sex and “romance” in women’s prisons. The investigation reveals facts crucial to understanding and preventing prison sex abuse.

2011 Rebekah Cowell – Reporting a 3 part series in Independent Weekly, The Triangle’s Weekly in North Carolina.

Part 1.  “The Waste Land: The people of Lincoln Heights live among three city dumps. This is the story of their war on trash.”

Part 2. ”Living on the Edge: Residents endure legacy of old Chatham County landfill.”

Part 3.  “Digging Deeper: In Orange and Guilford counties, neighbors fight landfill expansions.”

2011  Orla Ryan – From bean to bar – where does your chocolate come from?  Chocolate. The very word hints of the forbidden and a taste of the decadent. Yet the story behind the chocolate bar is rarely one of luxury. From the thousands of children who work on plantations to the smallholders who harvest the beans, Chocolate Nations reveals the hard economic realities of our favorite sweet. This vivid and gripping exploration of the reasons behind farmer poverty includes the human stories of the producers and traders at the heart of the West African industry. Orla Ryan shows how only a tiny fraction of the cash we pay for a chocolate bar actually makes it back to the farmers, and she sheds light on what Fairtrade really means on the ground. Provocative and eye-opening, Chocolate Nations exposes the true story of how the treat we love makes it onto our supermarket shelves.

2011  Wanjohi Kabukuru – “Merchants of Peril: Deadly Pesticides Pose Death, Pollution for EA.” They are hazardous, portend grim and fatal implications and adversely affect all living things. And East Africa is still stocking them… Click here to read

2011 Joel Brinkley – In 1992, Cambodia became a United Nations protectorate – the first and only time the UN tried something so ambitious. What did the new, democratically-elected government do with this unprecedented gift? Brinkley found a people in the grip of a venal government that refuses to provide even the most basic services without a bribe.  He learned that nearly half of the Cambodians who lived through the Khmer Rouge era suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and other debilitating mental illnesses. These afflictions have darkened the entire nation’s personality. Brinkley uncovered a malnourished populace that still lives as Cambodians did 1,000 years ago, while government officials divert unimaginable sums into their own pockets. These ministers are the only overweight people in a nation where the hungry waste away.

 2011 Moment Magazine – “They Had The Wrong Name At the Wrong Place At The Wrong Time,” an investigation by Moment’s editor and publisher, Nadine Epstein, into discrimination against Jews who worked for the U.S. Army Corps at Fort Monmouth, NJ in the wake of Julius Rosenberg’s arrest.

2011 The Daniel Pearl Project - An investigation by Asra Q. Nomani with a team of 32 Georgetown University students under the direction of Georgetown University Journalism Director Barbara Feinman Todd. Sponsored by the Center for Public Integrity’s International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, with major funding from the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation, and a travel grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

2010 I-News: The Rocky Mountain Investigative News Network - A six month investigation found what really happens to Colorado’s rising mountain of electronic waste.

2010 Ted Dracos – In Biocidal, investigative journalist Ted Dracos tells the full story of PCBs for the first time, starting with the chilling chronicle of how the chemical industry manipulated regulatory agencies and scientific findings for decades to continue to reap huge profits, despite their knowledge of the threats posed by their “magic fluid.” Published by Beacon Press.

2010 Wanjohi Kabukuru -  Bad for America, good for East Africa. For decades, Africa has been seen as a dumping ground for toxic waste and other agro chemicals and pharmaceutical products banned in the West…. Published in New African Magazine.

2010 Rebecca Clarren -  Toxic Past, Toxic Present: Banned pesticides linger in neighborhoods that swallowed up former farms and orchards. Published in High Country News.

2010 Judy Pasternak - “Yellow Dirt: An American Story of a Poisoned Land and a People Betrayed,” by Judy Pasternak, was released in September 2010.  Pasternak investigated the toxic aftermath of uranium mining on Navajo Indian land for the material used in atomic bombs in the 1940s. Radioactive dirt contaminated drinking water, playgrounds, and homes. The poisoning of the land and its people continues to the present day.

2010 The Chicago Reporter – As police pinned Derrick Reed to the hood of a squad car, one thought raced through his mind: “Oh, man. I’m going to go away. I’m 17 now.”

The East Garfield Park teen’s coming-of-age story isn’t filled with school dances or football-team tryouts. Rather, the day that shaped his adolescence was Nov. 30, 2009.  (Read the series.)

2010 SUE STURGIS – When a billion gallons of coal ash broke loose from a holding pond at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s power plant near Harriman, Tenn. in December 2008, registered nurse Penny Dodson was living nearby with her 18-month-old grandson, Evyn. Like most of her neighbors, Dodson never gave much thought.. (Read the 5-part series in Facing South)

2010 TODD MELBY & DIANE RICHARD – Their radio documentary No Brother of Mine offers an unflinching look at U.S. sex offender policy that reaches beyond the headlines and into the lives of real people. Award-winning independent producers Todd Melby and Diane Richard dare to humanize men that society demonizes: convicted sex offenders. Melby and Richard were granted extraordinary access to interview four offenders, first while the subjects were incarcerated in a Minnesota prison, and after being released as they look for work and forge new relationships. Reported over a period of four years, the documentary examines the efficacy of in-prison treatment programs and provides a nuanced examination of law enforcement efforts to keep the public safe using online registration, residency restrictions and civil commitment. The one-hour program aired on public radio stations nationwide, including KFAI (Minneapolis/St. Paul), WBEZ (Chicago), NHPR (New Hampshire Public Radio), KUT (Austin, Texas), KUOW (Seattle) and Minnesota Public Radio. Click here to listen and here for the story behind the story.

2010 ANAND GOPAL — Anand Gopal’s article in The Nation exposed how innocent people were killed in U.S. military raids on homes in Afghanistan; others disappeared following the raids. Conducted at night, these raids are even more feared and hated than Coalition air strikes. Gopal also investigates detainee abuse in secret jails on US military bases in Afghanistan. He reports that prisoner mistreatment shifted to these remote secret “field detention sites” after abuses were exposed at the Bagram Air Base prison. The story, America’s Secret Afghan Prisons prompted a re-examination of U.S. battlefield detention methods in Afghanistan by U.S. military leadership.

2010 JOHN KAMAU – Kenyan Journalist John Kamau unearthed archival documents that for the first time revealed just how land initially occupied by white settlers in colonial Kenya was transferred to politicians and their allies shortly after the country became independent. These unjust land practices have had a lasting impact in Kenya, contributing to political violence after the 2007 elections. Kamau details how funds from both the World Bank and UK Government – meant to settle the landless in the 1960s – were squandered. The series of 22 articles, published by both Daily Nation and Business Daily, collected evidence, named those who masterminded this land-grabbing in Kenya, and demonstrated how this history informs current politics.

2010 TREVOR AARONSON — Trevor Aaronson traveled to rural India to investigate the reasons why more than 200,000 Indian farmers have killed themselves in the last decade. Published in Columbia City Paper, The Suicide Belt examined how loans used to buy expensive, genetically modified cotton seeds are trapping subsistence farmers in a cycle of debt that ends in shame and, in the most tragic cases, suicide.

2010 MAC McCLELLAND – In the April 2010 issue of Mother Jones, Mac McClelland reports on refugees who are documenting cases of human rights violations, torture, and genocide in Burma. She also turned her research into the book For Us Surrender Is Out of the Question: A Story from Burma’s Never-Ending War, published by Soft Skull Press.

2010 MARITES VITUG — Shadow of Doubt: Probing the Supreme Court, by Marites Vitug, is the first book to lift the veil off the elusive Philippine Supreme Court. It looks at the inner workings of the Court, the least scrutinized of the three branches of government, including how the Justices arrive at decisions and the dynamics between the Supreme Court and the executive branch. The secrecy surrounding the Court has a direct impact on the quality of appointments. Vitug writes that loyalty to the appointing power is more important than merit in selecting people for the Supreme Court in the Philippines.

2010 TIM MATSUI – The Seattle photojournalist traveled to Cambodia to document human trafficking. He contributed to a multi-media investigative series on trafficking published online by KUOW Radio (Seattle).

2010 CHRISTOPHER PALA — Christopher Pala investigated the activities of a Honolulu-based fishing advisory council called Wespac. He found that it liberally distributed grants and travel perks to leading politicians in the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas for years to ensure their loyalty. They then obligingly backed Wespac in vociferously opposing the creation by President George W. Bush of the Marianas Trench National Marine Monument, which would have protected a corner of the Pacific archipelago from commercial fishing. Their campaign resulted in a much smaller protected area than the White House had first envisioned, with few practical benefits.

2009  HABIBA NOSHEEN AND HILKE SCHELLMANN - Co-producers of an investigative documentary on surrogacy, Wombs for Rent, that aired on NOW on PBS on Friday, Sept. 18, 2009.

2009 JASON GROTTO & TIM JONES — Chicago Tribune reporters Jason Grotto and Tim Jones authored a chilling five-part series, Agent Orange: A Lethal Legacy, describing the devastating health consequences suffered by U.S. military veterans and Vietnamese nationals who were exposed to Agent Orange and other dioxin-laced defoliants during the war in Vietnam. Birth defects have extended the impact to a second generation. But the U.S. government has done little to make amends, either in the United States or overseas.

2009 GREG BOSNAN & JENNIFER SZYMASZEK — Greg Brosnan and Jennifer Szymaszek produced a video, Guatemala: A Tale of Two Villages, that appears on Frontline Rough Cuts website. It tells about the Guatemalans who were rounded up in a large immigration raid in Postville, Iowa, and sent back to their home country.

2009 JONATHAN GREEN — Murder in the High Himalaya, a book by Jonathan Green about the brutal murder of a 17-year-old nun fleeing to India by Chinese border guards. Will be published in the Spring of 2010.

“Murder in the High Himalaya is the unforgettable account of the brutal killing of Kelsang Namtso—a seventeen-year-old Tibetan nun fleeing to India—by Chinese border guards. Witnessed by dozens of Western climbers, Kelsang’s death sparked an international debate over China’s savage oppression of Tibet. Adventure reporter Jonathan Green has gained rare entrance into this shadow-land at the rooftop of the world. In his affecting portrait of modern Tibet, Green raises enduring questions about morality and the lengths we go to achieve freedom.”

2009 HAL HERRING — Hal Herring wrote an article in Miller-McCune magazine about the plans of St. Joseph Company to develop large areas of timberland in the Florida panhandle: The Panhandle Paradox.

2009 SCOTT CARNEY — Scott Carney’s Meet the Parents – Confronting the Dark Side of Overseas Adoption was published in Mother Jones in its March/April 2009 issue with both photos and text. The article is a poignant and powerful account about children kidnapped in Indian slums, sold to orphanages and sent to foreign countries for adoption and the lack of any effective laws to counter the lucrative trade. It centers on one boy, a toddler plucked off the streets in 1999, and raised in America by a family that paid $15,000 in fees and refuses to concede he might have been kidnapped. His Indian parents know they will never get him back and just want to communicate with their child’s new family, so far without any luck.

2009 THOMAS A. BASS — Thomas A. Bass’ The Spy Who Loved Us was published by PublicAffairs in 2009.

“Pham Xuan An was a brilliant journalist and an even better spy. A long-time correspondent for Time and friendly with all the legendary reporters covering Vietnam, he was an invaluable source of news and font of wisdom on all things Vietnamese. At the same time, he was a masterful double agent, a North Vietnamese intelligence agent whose secret reports were so admired by Ho Chi Minh that he clapped his hands with glee on receiving them and exclaimed, “We are now in the United States’ war room!” An inspired shape-shifter who kept his cover in place until the day he died, Pham Xuan An ranks as one of the preeminent spies of the twentieth century.”

2009 PRATAP CHATTERLEE — Pratap Chatterlee’s Halliburton’s Army: How a Well-Connected Texas Company Revolutionized the Way America Makes War, published by Nation Books, was written up in Vanity Fair and praised in other reviews. The book received FIJ’S 2005 Robert I. Friedman award.

“From Halliburton’s vital mission as the logistical backbone of the U.S. occupation in Iraq—without it there could be no war or occupation—to its role in covering up gang-rape among its personnel in Baghdad, Halliburton’s Army is a devastating exposé of corporate malfeasance and political cronyism. In shocking detail it shows how Halliburton and its former subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR) really do business in Iraq, and around the world. “

2009 SUSAN COHEN & CHRISTINE COSGROVE — Susan Cohen and Christine Cosgrove’s Normal at Any Cost, was the recipient of FIJ’s $25,000 book award in 2003. The book about hormones that affect the growth of children, was published in March 2009 and widely reviewed.

2009 JP OLSEN — JP Olsen of Brooklyn, NY, produced and directed a one-hour public television documentary on secret CIA-funded drug experiments at the U.S. Narcotic Farm in Lexington, Kentucky. The film is also the subject of an accompanying book, The Narcotic Farm, which Olsen co-authored, published by Harry Abrams.

“The Narcotic Farm – both the documentary and the book – tells the story of this fascinating institution through rare photographs and film, forgotten press clippings, revealing government documents, and historically significant new interviews with prisoners, doctors, and guards who were there. Through their interviews and a wealth of newly collected archival material, The Narcotic Farm traces this federal institution’s rise and tumultuous fall.”

2009 JANET GARDNER — Janet Gardner’s The Last Ghost of War is an award winning documentary about the devastating and long-lasting effects of Agent Orange, which caused genetic defects that have been passed on for generations of Vietnamese. Between 3.5 and 5 million Vietnamese were exposed to it and their children and children’s children are paying the price.

2009 CHICAGO REPORTER — The Chicago Reporter published a study of more than 625,000 first mortgages for owner-occupied homes in the Chicago area and found that it was first in the nation for high-cost loans to whites and second only to D.C. in high-cost loans to blacks. Black homeowners who used Wells Fargo got high cost loans 37 per cent of the time compared to five per cent of whites who used the giant bank.

2009 JIM CARRIER — Jim Carrier wrote All You Can Eat for Orion Magazine about the devastating effects of shrimp farming throughout the world. Some shrimp are raised in such dirty water that antibiotics must routinely be used. Even in the best farms, two to four pounds of sea life is caught and ground up for every pound of shrimp caught. In the U. S., 90 per cent of our shrimp come from foreign farms and FDA sample less than 1 per cent of it. The article was selected for the 2010 anthology, The Best American Science and Nature Writing, published by Houghton Mifflin.

2009 RACHEL GRAVES — Rachel Graves and the Houston Chronicle published an article on the politics of gun control. She later did a similar article in the Sept. 5, 2007, edition of the Christian Science Monitor, Gun Debate Muzzles the Middle Ground. Her articles focused on antagonism between the Brady campaign and the NRA created and precluded compromise.

2009 SAMUEL AUSTIN MERRILL — Samuel Austin Merrill’s Letter from Timbuktu, an article on U. S. military training of West African troops in a counterterrorism program, was published on Vanity Fair‘s website in September 2007. It was an interesting look at a preventive Special Forces program that includes medical and humanitarian assistance for impoverished villagers as well as Malian soldiers. It produced mixed results in local attitudes, from gratitude to al-Qaeda-inspired antagonism.

2009 MARIA O’DONNELL — Maria O’Donnell examined media manipulation in Argentina through government-controlled advertising for Radio Mitre. The article, published in 2006, made it to the finals of an important investigative journalism contest in Latin America and led to a book, based on the same investigation.

2009 KENT PATERSON — Kent Paterson authored a print-radio series on hazardous materials shipments on the U. S.-Mexico border post 9-11, cruise ship tourism and corruption in US border law enforcement. Series was aired and published 2007-2008.

2009 GARETH PORTER — Gareth Porter completed a penetrating investigation of the 1996 truck bomb explosion in the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 US airmen and wounded 372. In a five-part series for the Inter Press Service News Agency (July 2009), he uncovered a deliberate Saudi effort, aided and abetted by then FBI Director Louis Freeh, to pin the blame on Iran and divert attention from the real perpetrators, Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda.

2009 PROGRESSIVE MAGAZINE — Progressive Magazine celebrated its 100th anniversary with a FIJ-supported book devoted to many of its best investigative articles, from Robert LaFollette’s 1921 investigation of Teapot Dome to a 2001 expose of how the U.S. used sanctions to degrade Iraq’s water supply following the Gulf War.

2008 BART JONES — Bart Jones completed his investigative biography of Hugo Chavez, titled Hugo! : The Hugo Chavez Story from Mud Hut to Perpetual Revolution. The book was published by Steer Forth Press. One reviewer called it a “masterful achievement that finally puts this crucial Latin American figure … into context within Venezeula, within Latin America, as well as internationally.”

2008 RACHEL GRAVES — Rachel Graves completed her article tracking the easy flow of handguns from manufacturer to owners – both legal and illegal – and about the politics of the gun ownership debate. It was published by the Christian Science Monitor.

2008 PHIL BURNHAM — Phil Burnham completed his article on the gradual disappearance of African Americans from Williamsburg since the Rockefeller Foundation turned it into a tourist attraction. He also completed his series of articles on the taking of Native American property by the U.S. military during World War II.

2008 REBECCA CLARREN — Rebecca Clarren completed her article on agricultural pesticide drift and measures that a local community has taken to monitor it effects. It was published by Orion magazine. Clarren also now has a regular blog on agricultural and environmental issues published by High Country News. Her article on the ethanol craze in the Midwest was published by The Utne Reader.

2008 CHRIS KETCHAM — Chris Ketcham completed his article questioning whether the government is compiling a list of people who should be detained in the event of declaration of martial law. It was published by Radar magazine.

2008 CHRIS PALA — Chris Pala completed his article on the effect that “algae farming” is having on the world’s coral reefs. It was published by the New York Times.

2007 JESSICA SNYDER SACHS — Good Germs, Bad Germs: Health and Survival in a Bacterial World by Jessica Snyder Sachs, winner of the 2005 book award, has been published by Hill and Wang and is available in bookstores. Her argument is that “antibiotic resistance now ranks among the gravest medical problems of modern times”.

“Public sanitation and antibiotic drugs have brought about historic increases in the human life span; they have also unintentionally produced new health crises by disrupting the intimate, age-old balance between humans and the microorganisms that inhabit our bodies and our environment. As a result, antibiotic resistance now ranks among the gravest medical problems of modern times. Good Germs, Bad Germs addresses not only this issue but also what has become known as the hygiene hypothesis – an argument that links the over-sanitation of modern life to now-epidemic increases in immune and other disorders.

2007 CHICAGO REPORTER — The Chicago Reporter published its article on the use of city employees to gather nominating petitions for Mayor Daley and his cohorts.

2007 MARY BETH PFEIFFER — Mary Beth Pfeiffer completed her book on the treatment of mentally ill people held in America’s prisons. It is titled Crazy in America.

2007 TRUDY LIEBERMAN — Columbia Journalism Review published Trudy Lieberman’s article on hospitals’ manipulation of local television news programs to get free publicity.

2007 BAZ DREISINGER — Baz Dreisinger completed her article on a radical Islamist movement on the island of Trinadad.

2007 MIKE ANANE — The Ghanaian Observer and Public Agenda have published Mike Anane‘s stories about the environmental and economic consequences of open-pit gold mining by Western-owned companies in Ghana.

2007 AMY BACH — Amy Bach has completed the manuscript for her book on the American justice system. It will be published in January 2009 by Metropolitan Books.

2006 MARY JONES & BEAUTY TURNER — Mary Johns and Beauty Turner have completed a series of articles investigating the way in which Chicago public housing redevelopment is affecting the city’s crime rate. The articles were published in Residents’ Journal, a publication produced by public housing residents. Their work has won several honors, including the New America Award and the Peter Lisagor Award.

2006 RICK COHEN — Non-Profit Quarterly has published a lengthy article investigating Faith and Money in the Bush Administration. The article explores “the deceptions and dangers” that occur when “politics and nonprofits mix for political ends”. The carefully documented article – it even has footnotes – was written by Rick Cohen.

2006 JEANNE BARON — Jeanne Baron completed her report on women in Rwanda who were raped and subsequently infected with HIV. Her report was broadcast on the NPR program All Things Considered.

2006 KATHERINE EBAN — Katherine Eban’s book on counterfeit drugs, Dangerous Doses, has been reissued in paperback with a new chapter and updated material.

2006 MICHAEL SHAPIRO — Columbia Journalism Review published an examination of the Philadelphia Inquirer and its effort to reinvent itself in an era of cutbacks and declining circulation. The article, published shortly before the sale of Knight Ridder to the McClatchy chain, was written by Michael Shapiro.

2006 KAI WRIGHT — Kai Wright completed his investigation of inadequate and ineffective HIV prevention policies in federal and state prisons. His article was published in The Progressive magazine.

2006 TINKER READY — Tinker Ready‘s article investigating conflicts of interest in health advocacy organizations that receive money from pharmaceutical companies was published in the Washington Post.

2006 GARRANCE BURKE — Garrance Burke won the Society of Professional Journalists’ award for best online reporting for her investigation of the ongoing strife in Chiapas, Mexico.

2006 HILARY ABRAMSON — Hilary Abramson completed her project on the lack of interpreters in medical facilities – a right mandated by federal law – available to assist non-English-speaking patients. “The two out of five Los Angeles residents who speak Spanish at home would find it easier to buy a can of paint at Lowe’s than explain to a public hospital emergency room doctor where it hurts.” Her article was distributed by New America Media and published in the Sacramento Bee and elsewhere.

2006 STEVE HENDRICKS — Steve Hendricks’ book on the struggle between the FBI and Native Americans in the 1970s was published by Thunder’s Mouth Press. Unquiet Grave: The FBI and the Struggle for the Soul of Indian Country was called “investigative journalism at its gutsiest, at its noblest” by author Studs Terkel.

2006 ALICIA SHEPARD — Alicia Shepard’s book, Woodward and Bernstein: Life in the Shadow of Watergate, was published by John Wiley & Sons. “Alicia Shepard has long been one of the nation’s most important writers on journalism,” wrote Gene Roberts. “Now she turns her attention to two of history’s most famous journalists. Her book is a winner–penetrating, fascinating, and remarkably balanced.”

2006 REBECCA CLARREN — Rebecca Clarren’s article on the health and environmental consequences of “fracking” a new process of natural gas extraction, was published by Salon, the online magazine. Additional articles on her investigation were published this week by Orion magazine in its print and online editions. One of the EPA’s own engineers called the agency’s failure to investigate “irrational and corrupt.” Both publications credited the Fund’s support.

2006 MARIA O’ DONNELL — Maria O’Donnell’s investigation of Rudy Ulloa and press corruption in was published in Noticias, Argentina’s best-selling news magazine, under the headline El Hombre del millon de Pesos. Ulloa is the president’s former driver who has been able to channel large amounts of government money into press manipulation to benefit himself.

2006 ELIZABETH GROSSMAN — Elizabeth Grossman’s book, High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxins, and Human Health, has been published by Island Press. Her article on the role of IBM in polluting an area of New York state was published in The Nation magazine. One review called the book “a Silent Spring for the new millennium”.

2005 NIC DUNLOP — Nic Dunlop’s book about Comrade Duch, The Lost Executioner, has been published in London by Bloomsbury Publishing and Walker books in the US. The book examines the life of a man responsible for the deaths of more than 20,000 people in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. Dunlop discovered Duch living in the west of the country under an assumed name in 1999. He had been working for international aid organizations as a born-again Christian. As a result of Dunlop’s exposure of Duch he was arrested and jailed. Ten years later, he was the first of five former Khmer Rouge to go on trial at the UN tribunal in Cambodia charged with crimes against humanity, war crimes, murder and torture.

2005 JASON BERRY — Jason Berry’s Vows of Silence, a film based on his book, co-authored with Gerald Renner, won the Best TV Documentary Award at the 2008 Mexico City International Documentary Film Festival. The film follows the Vatican investigation of accused sex abuser Father Maciel, founder of the Legionaries of Christ. It is based on a 2004 book of the same title, for which Berry and Renner received the Fund’s 2002 annual book award. In December 2004, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger ordered an investigation of Maciel. The film follows the investigation through Ratzinger’s election as Pope Benedict XVI, and his decision in 2006 to remove Maciel from active ministry. In 2009 the Vatican opened an investigation of the entire religious order. The film has been shown on pay-per-view in Italy, with airdates in Spain and Ireland.

2005 KATHERINE EBAN FINKELSTEIN — Katherine Eban Finkelstein’s book about stolen, tainted and counterfeit prescription drugs, Dangerous Doses, has been published by Harcourt. Buzz Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights, offered this praise: “This is a book that comes along so rarely in non-fiction-brilliantly reported, written with the pace of a potboiler and harrowing in its societal repercussions. In Dangerous Doses, Katherine Eban takes us on a journey into the underbelly of the pharmaceutical industry so spooky and strange and sinister and deadly, you will have a hard time believing it is true. But it is, every word, which only makes Dangerous Doses shine even more.” An excerpt of the book will appear in Vanity Fair magazine, and she is currently on a book tour.

2005 THE DUNCAN GROUP — The Cost of Freedom, a video documentary examining the impact of the USA Patriot Act on civil liberties. The 60-minute documentary aired on public television channels across the nation.

2005 STEPHANIE MENCIMER — Stephanie Mencimer, recipient of the Fund’s 2004 book award for her investigation of the “tort reform” movement, has been involved in a fierce exchange of views with Stuart Taylor, who reports on legal issues for Newsweek magazine. The argument has played out in The Washington Monthly, CNN’s Lou Dobbs program, a website called Overlawyered and elsewhere. She’s more than holding her own.

2005 JORDAN GREEN — completed a series of articles on the Bush administration’s enforcement of voting rights laws that appeared in Southern Exposure magazine and its website.

2005 MARIAH BLAKE — Mariah Blake’s article investigating Jonathan Keith Idema, an American vigilante in Afghanistan, and his manipulation of the U.S. press for fame and profit, was published by Columbia Journalism Review. The story was the magazine’s cover story in its January-February issue.

2005 CHARLES LAYTON — Charles Layton’s story about devastating budget cuts at the Dallas Morning News was published by American Journalism Review. The newspaper laid off 65 reporters after it was caught up in a scandal over its circulation figures.

2005 KATHY SHERIDAN — Ms magazine‘s article investigating the treatment of women in post-Taliban Afghanistan was published in its winter 2004-2005 issue. The article was the work of reporter Kathy Sheridan and photographer Sharron Lovell.

2005 MICHAEL FLYNN — Michael Flynn’s article investigating the U.S. government’s activities in Manta, Ecuador, was published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and on its website. The article reveals that the U.S. is using its anti-drug program to block emigration by impoverished Ecuadorans, with little concern for legal or civil rights. His report on the huge number of people from around the around the world who attempt to use Mexico as a gateway into the United States was published in the Washington Post Outlook section. Flynn encountered significant opposition from Mexican officials in his attempt to investigate conditions in detention centers where undocumented migrants are held.

2005 REBECCA CLARREN — Rebecca Clarren, who received a discretionary grant to investigate the dairy industry, was published by Salon, an online magazine. Clarren’s story revealed wretched conditions at huge, industrial-scale confinement dairies that are still allowed by the USDA to call their milk “organic.”

2005 KELLY McEVERS — Kelly McEvers’ investigation of circumstances surrounding the 2004 siege of a school in Beslan, Russia, was published online by Slate magazine. Foreign Policy magazine has committed to publishing another version of her investigation, and National Public Radio will broadcast an audio report. The evidence strongly suggests that official corruption and police collusion played a large role in the disastrous conclusion of the siege.

2005 STEPHEN FERRY — Stephen Ferry’s photojournalistic essay on the lives of people affected by Columbia’s ongoing civil war was published by National Geographic. The Open Society Institute exhibited his work in a gallery at its Washington office, and Wired and GEO, a French magazine also published his photos. The Fund’s grant to Ferry was made in 2000 and completion of his project apparently was delayed for a variety of reasons, including his arrest on September 11, 2001 at the site of the World Trade Center, where he was taking photographs while wearing portions of a New York Fire Department uniform. Ferry was sentenced to community service.

2005 GEORGE ANTHAN & JACK COFFMAN — George Anthan and Jack Coffman have completed their report on newspapers in the Northern Great Plains states, where depopulation has killed scores of small town papers and left others struggling to survive. Their story and photographs were published by the Columbia Journalism Review.

2005 SEEMA SINGH — Seema Singh, the 2005 recipient of the Robert I. Friedman Award, investigated drug testing in India, where major pharmaceutical companies are taking advantage of lax oversight and poor standards to achieve favorable results on the trials of new drugs. Her lengthy report was published in the Sunday editions of Newindpress, an Indian newspaper. The Nation magazine is currently considering publication of a version aimed at a U.S. audience.

2004 ALICE HORRIGAN — Investigated crime victims who never receive the restitution they were promised by courts. Unclaimed restitution funds now total more than $100 million according to her account.

2004 PHILLIP BABICH — Investigated the federal government’s inept response to a disasterous coal slurry accident in a report aired on NPR’s Living on Earth.

2004 LIZA FEATHERSTONE — Examined Wal-Mart’s treatment of female employees Selling Women Short: The Landmark Battle for Workers Rights at Wal-Mart, published by Basic Books.

2004 RON CHEPESIUK — Explored the impact of globalization on women garment workers in South Asia in an article for Toward Freedom magazine.

2004 CHRISTOPHER BRYSON — Investigated health and environmental concerns surrounding the use of fluoride in drinking water in The Flouride Deception, published by Seven Stories Press.

2004 CHARLES LAYTON — Explored lobbying and political activity by major communications firms in a series of articles published by American Journalism Review.

2004 ELIZA GRISWOLD — Investigated the strange interplay of forces in a remote area of Pakistan called Waziristan, reputed to be the hiding place of Osama bin Laden. Griswold was the first recipient of the Fund’s Robert Friedman Award for International Investigative Reporting. Her article was published in the New Yorker .

2004 PRATAP CHATTERJEE AND RANIA MASRI — Occupation Inc. investigated war profiteering by American contractors in Iraq during the early stages of U.S. occupation. Their article was published by Southern Exposure .

2004 THOMAS LOWENSTEIN — Two articles calling into question the guilt of Pennsylvania man on death row for the murder of a child. The articles were published by the Philadelphia Citypaper.

2004 JIM WYSS — Investigated the massacre of 25 women and children in Ecuador’s Amazon forest. They were members of the Tagaeri-Taromenane tribe that has been swept up in violence fueled by illegal logging in the area. His articles were published in the Miami Herald and the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Herald also published several excellent photographs by Wyss.

2004 RACHEL SMOLKIN — Examined newsroom cutbacks at newspapers owned by the Tribune Company, now the nation’s third-largest newspaper company by circulation. Her article, Uncertain Times, was published by American Journalism Review .

2004 PASCALE BONNEFOY — Investigated torture and abuse at Chile’s National Stadium during the Pinochet dictatorship in Terrorismo de Estadio, a Spanish-language book published by Ediciones Chile America – CESOC.

2003 ANNE-MARIE CUSAC — Explored union-busting techniques used by today’s employers in Brazen Bosses, published by The Progressive magazine.

2003 ARLENE EDMONDS – Exposed the practice of social service agencies removing children from their homes solely because their parents are living in poverty. Her article, Parental Rights: Losing Children to Poverty, was the cover story in the Philadelphia Tribune Magazine .

2003 LIZA FEATHERSTONE – Investigated the treatment of female workers by Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest employer, in Wal-Mart Values. Her article was the cover story in the Nation magazine.

2003 DAN FERBER — Wrote several articles for Science magazine exposing the Bush administration’s attempt to politicize the membership of scientific advisory panels. His stories prompted similar articles in the Washington Post, New York Times, Time.com and other publications.

2003 KATY RECKDAHL — Completed a series of articles about the lives of poor people in New Orleans for Gambit, an alternative weekly. The articles often reported on the encounters between police/local authorities and poor people. A vivid example was her article on a police crackdown on kids who tapdance for change on street corners in the Latin Quarter. The police said they were doing it because the kids weren’t properly trained as artists.

2003 WENDY SUE WILLIAMS — Completed her investigation of carbon sequestration and other emissions-trading schemes, questioning whether the purposes of the Kyoto treaty are being subverted. Her articles on the subject were published in Scientific American and the Boston Globe. It was also the subject of a lengthy interview with her on National Public Radio’s Living on Earth.

2003 SARA BETH MILLER — Investigated the plight of impoverished Moroccan children who illegally enter the Spanish outpost of Ceuta . The article was published in the news section of the Christian Science Monitor and subsequently was the basis of an expanded piece in the paper’s Ideas section.

2003 JOSEPH ROSENBLOOM — Investigated Tyson Food’s employment of illegal immigrants in its plants –and its subsequent exoneration by a jury considering criminal charges –in an article for The American Prospect.

2003 TOMRIC NEWS AGENCY — Completed six articles on looting and corruption, and the possible involvment of Al Qaeda, surrounding Tanzanite. Its articles have been published in the Sunday Observer and The Guardian, both of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, and have resulted in cases referred to the country’s attorney general and the Commission on Fair Trade Practices for possible action.

2003 JIM MORRIS — Investigated a toxic waste catastrophe in Jersey City. The case involved the widespread dumping of deadly chromium by local industries and twenty years of dithering by environmental agencies about cleaning it up. His story was published by the Dallas Morning News , where he now works.

2003 REBECCA CLARREN — Harvesting Poison investigated the dangers of pesticides to immigrant farm workers in an article published by High Country News . Her report included an excellent sidebar on the routine, illegal use of child labor on farms. Another version of Clarren’s article was published by The Nation .

2003 SUE SMITH-HEAVENRICH –Reported on sludge containing toxic chemicals that is sold commercially as “organic” fertilizer. Her article was published by the Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener.

2003 KOREN CAPOZZA — Investigated toxic chemical contamination at Fort Greely, Alaska – site of a secret U.S. military biological and chemical weapons testing program – in an article published by The Nation.

2003 GARRANCE BURKE — Investigated the long-running conflict in the Chiapas region of Mexico in a lengthy article published on-line by PBS’s Frontline / World Fellows program.

2003 NILSON MARIANO — Investigated a secret alliance among military dictatorships in South America during the 1970s in a book, As Garras do Condor, published in Brazil by Editora Vozes.

2002 KATY RECKDAHL — Completed a year-long investigation of juvenile justice in Louisiana, although she is continuing to follow some of the cases she reported. Gambit , an alternative New Orleans weekly. The series included nine stories and sidebars. Reckdahl was named “journalist of the year” by the Louisiana Mental Health Association for her work.

2002 KEN SILVERSTEIN — Investigated Leonid Minin and other shadowy arms dealers who sell weapons to terrorists and rogue regimes in the January/February 2002 issue of The Washington Monthly.

2002 CAROLYN JOHNSEN — Examined the environmental, economic and social effects of “hog factory” farms in the Midwest in a book titled Raising a Stink. It was published by the University of Nebraska Press.

2002 GALINA GOTUA — Investigated the poisoning of people in the Republic of Georgia by a radiation leak from a Strontium-90 generator. Her article was published by the newspaper Georgia Today, including an English-language version published in the U.S.

2002 KATY RECKDAHL – Scaling Back examined devastating budget cuts faced by the New Orleans Legal Assistance Corp., which has argued thousands of civil cases on behalf of the poor over a 35-year period. Another article examined police harassment of kids who tap dance for spare change on street corners, a long tradition in New Orleans, because local authorities have decided they are in violation of the city’s panhandling laws. Both articles were published in Gambit, a weekly newspaper.

2002 MARY ANN SWISSLER — The Marketing of Breast Cancer investigated the Susan G. Komen Foundation, sponsor of the “Race for the Cure,” and its emphasis on finding a medical cure for breast cancer. Her story was published by Southern Exposure magazine and distributed over the Internet by AlterNet.org.

2002 JOE RODRIGUEZ — East Side Stories, a photojournalism book examining gang in Los Angeles. His book was published by Powerhouse Books.

2002 THE ADIRONDAK EXPLORER – Completed a two-year series of stories about development pressures facing Adirondack Park and the failure of officials to properly address the problem.

2002 JIMMIE BRIGGS — Guerilla Girls, a story investigating the use of girls as suicide bombers by Tamil rebels in Sri Lanka. The story was published by Bust magazine and was the basis for a report aired on ABC’s 20/20.

2001 NAFTALI MUNGAI – Investigated extensive environmental damage and associated issues of corruption involving titanium mining in Kenya by the Canadian-owned company Tiomin Resources Inc. His article was published in The People (Nairobi).

2001 BEVERLY PETERSON — Invisible Revolution, a video documentary, examined the raw struggle between young KKK supporters and their anti-racist adversaries. The documentary included an interview with Benjamin Smith conducted shortly before he went on a racist killing spree in the Midwest. The video was first shown on public television in Dayton and subsequently screened at the Sundance film festival and other venues.

2001 WALLACE ROBERTS — Questioned whether California power-generating companies conspired to raise electricity prices by exploiting weaknesses in the state’s deregulation law. The article was published in the Sacramento Bee. Roberts was a recipient of the Fund’s annual book award for a book investigating the impact of electricity deregulation on consumers.

2001 GEOFFREY F.X. O’CONNELL – The Mystery of the 364th reveals the story of a ten-year investigation questioning whether a black WWII Army regiment was massacred at Camp Van Dorn, Mississippi. Published in Gambit Weekly (New Orleans) April 10, 2001 www.bestofneworleans.com. A History Channel documentary on the subject, based on O’Connell’s research, will air soon. Versions of the Gambit Weekly story also were published in numerous alternative weeklies around the country.

2001 EL ANDAR MAGAZINE — Silicone Shame, a series of investigative reports on the health and environmental impact that computer manufacturing has on low-income workers.

2001 DAN LA BOTZ – Made in Indonesia: Indonesian Workers Since Suharto published in June 2001 by South End Press: Cambridge. The book is an in-depth examination of Indonesia’s labor movement since the overthrow of the Suharto dictatorship and the continuing struggle for democratization and workers’ rights. Information is available on the publisher’s web site at www.southendpress.org.

2001 INGRID LOBET — Investigation of the circumstances resulting in the poisoning by carbon monoxide gas of workers at a fruit-packing plant in Washington State in 1997. Broadcast April 29, 2001 on NPR’s Latino USA program. Archived at www.lusa.org. The documentary won several awards, including the Scripps Award for best broadcast documentary.

2001 MARI TSIKELASHVILI – Examination of Russia’s confiscation of property and gold owned by Georgia in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, including the apparent collusion of Georgian President Edward Shevardnadze. Published in ALIA in January 2001.

2001 BRIAN LIGOMEKA – Expose of corruption involving U.S. assistance to Malawi. Among officials implicated in the stories is President Bakili Muluzi, who is alleged to have had ties to a Ugandan national who was to receive a $6 million commission in the award of a U.S.-sponsored national identity card project to a Swiss holding company. Published in The Mirror (Blantyre) in the April 26-30, 2001 issue. Additional stories by Ligomeka were distributed by the African Eye News Service, available at www.allafrica.com.

2001 ERIC LONGABARDI – BioWar, an investigation into secret biological/chemical testing conducted by the U.S. military in the 1960s, won top honors in the “Best of the West” Journalism Awards. The two-part investigation, broadcast by CBS Evening News in May 2000, can be seen at http://www.cbsnews.com/now/story/0,1597,235003-412,00.shtml.

2001 ERNESTO BAZAN — Images of everyday life in Cuba during the “special period” after the fall of the Soviet Union. Published in Vol. 19 #4 of the APF Reporter and available online at www.aliciapatterson.org/APF1904/Bazan/Bazan.phpl.

2001 KATY RECKDAHL — The first in a series of stories on the juvenile justice system in New Orleans detailed efforts by two eight-grade students charged with a school shooting to obtain a trial by jury, since the state was trying them as adults. It was published May 22, 2001 in Gambit Weekly . A trial judge subsequently ruled for the students, but the state is appealing. Second in the series, published July 10, was a story about a boy kept incarcerated for four years for the crime of joyriding. The stories are archived at www.bestofneworleans.com.

2001 JEREMY BIGWOOD — The Accidental Spy, a first-person account of Bigwood’s discovery that the U.S. Government had access to thousands of his photographs taken while working in Central America for the Gamma Liaison news agency from 1984 to 1994, was published in the July/August issue of American Journalism Review.

2001 JANET GARDNER –Documentary on Operation Babylift, the effort to rescue more than 2,000 infants and children at the close of the Vietnam War, and its enduring impact on their lives and the U.S. families who adopted them. PBS stations will broadcast the documentary nationally in November as part of “National Adoption Month.”  Information on the project is available at www.gardnerdocgroup.com.

2001 ALAN LIPKE — Are We Still Making Progress? combined elements of a radio documentary on an 1898 race riot in Wilmington, N.C. with a public forum on present day race relations in the area. The two-hour program was broadcast on March 22, 2001 by WHQR-FM, public radio in Wilmington. Public Radio International will broadcast the finished documentary in February 2002. Information about the documentary and Lipke’s other projects is available on his web site at http://realityworks.wmnf.org.

2001 STEVE WEINBERG — A brief profile of the “patron saint” of investigative reporting, Ida Tarbell, published in the May-June 2001 issue of Columbia Journalism Review devoted to “The Investigators.” It is available online at http://www.cjr.org/year/01/3/tarbell.asp

2001 JOHN KAMAU — British Bombs Cause Mayhem, reporting on deaths and injuries in rural Kenya caused by munitions used in military training exercises, was published in the June 2001 issue of New Africa magazine. The magazine is available at www.africicasia.com/icpubs although at last check this article was not available online. Another story, Cover-up of British Bombs, published by Rights Features Service, is available at www.dfn.org/focus/kenya/britishbombs.php A more extensive article, Killer Bombs No One Owns was published June 3, 2001 in The People , a Nairobi newspaper.

2001 CHARLES BANDA — Investigated deplorable prison conditions in southern Malawi in eighteen articles published in the newspaper African Witness. The stories detailed widespread cases of disease, malnutrition, extreme over-crowding, rape and murder. In August the president of Malawi released 880 prisoners in an effort to relieve conditions. Banda has received the second half of his grant but is continuing to investigate prison conditions in northern Malawi.

2001 LEAH SAMUEL — Reported on illegal and irregular management practices of the Detroit Public Library system in a story published by the Michigan Citizen. Among other things, Samuel revealed that the library’s general fund account is chronically overdrawn, that money is spent without contracts or proper records and that the system operates with virtually no public oversight.

2001 KEN SILVERSTEIN — U.S. Oil Politics in “The Kuwait of Africa” investigated the pillaging of Equatorial Guinea by U.S. oil companies. The article was the cover story in The Nation .

2001 KATY RECKDAHL — Continued her periodic series on the juvenile justice system in Louisiana for the Gambit weekly newspaper with an account of the system’s faltering effort to deal with girls, who now account for one of every four juveniles arrested. In October she wrote about allegations of abuse at the Tallulah juvenile prison.

2001 KENT PATERSON — Investigated the Bush administration’s attempt to relax restraints on the training of Mexican police officers by U.S. law enforcement agencies. The proposed changes would allow “thugs and murderers” into the system and revive practices of torture and disappearance. His story was produced for the Pacific News Service.

2000 Black Mass, The Irish Mob, The FBI and a Devil’s Deal by Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill is the story of John Connolly, an agent in the FBI’s Boston office, and James “Whitey” Bulger, godfather of the Irish mob. They grew up together and Connolly had a scheme to bring Bulger into the FBI fold and put himself into the Bureau’s big leagues. The book is “the chilling true story of what happened between them-a dark deal that spiraled out of control, leading to uncontested murders and drug dealing, and eventual racketeering indictments for both Connolly and Bulger.” Bulger is currently on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. It was published by PublicAffairs.

2000 Red Mafiya – How The Russian Mob Has Invaded America by Robert Friedman is an investigative book exposing Russian organized crime, its growing power in the United States and how it has infiltrated US banks and brokerage houses. Published in May 2000 by Little Brown.

2000 Story investigating lung cancer research, the reluctance of US hospitals to use CT scans to identify lung tumors in their earliest stages and the indifference toward lung cancer victims by Tinker Ready in the July 11 Boston Globe.

2000 Special issue documenting the plight of African American males in Chicago supported by graphics depicting their education level, unemployment, life expectancy and parenthood. Published in the April issue of The Chicago Reporter it paints a grim picture of a group in crisis.

2000 An investigation of the denial of medications and drugs to jailed inmates with AIDS and HIV and the serious public health consequences if drug-resistant strains are transmitted to others. By Anne-Marie Cusac in the July issue of The Progressive.

2000 An investigation of Kenya’s juvenile homes and how, through corruption, theft and negligence, they are breeding delinquents and hardened criminals by Wanjohi Kabukuru in the April and May issues of Nairobi’s The People on Sunday.

2000 An investigation of the US government’s friendly dealings with Nazi war criminals after WWII; how Dieter Maier, an amateur German investigator, found more information on US collaboration with Nazis than a committee appointed by Congress to extract the same data; and the CIA’s refusal thus far to turn over a single piece of paper relating to Nazi looting, war crimes and American ties to Nazi war criminals. Published on Salon.com on May 3.

2000 Cover and lead story by Anne-Marie Cusac about the use of restraint chairs in US jails and prisons which has led to torture and death. Published in the April issue of The Progressive.

2000 TV documentary about a secret Pentagon biological warfare testing program directed at the crews of five US Navy warships in the western Pacific and eastern Atlantic during the 1960s produced by Eric Longabardi. It appeared on the CBS Evening News May 15 and 16.

2000 A television investigation into the high rate of suicide among farmers for Kentucky Public Television by Joe Gray called Green Blood Red Tears. It aired in January 2000.

1999/2000 A series of radio documentaries examining human rights in Guatemala, Guatemala’s complicity in the kidnapping, rape and torture of American missionary Sister Dianna Ortiz, how torture victims cope, and the potential US connection to repressive military regimes in Guatemala. By Maria E. Martin for NPR’s Latino USA and Radio Bilingue.

1999 An investigation into the weakness of media coverage of the Ocoee Election Day “race riot” in l920, the overall journalistic responsibility issues involved in racial violence, the birth of White Supremacy, and the rebirth and decline of the Klan by Alan Lipke. Four segments in December on WMNF-FM Tampa streamed simultaneously in RealAudio at http://wmnf.org and programs broadcast on 50 public radio stations nationwide in February 2000 including DC, Atlanta, Philadelphia and Chicago.

1999 A television documentary called Dancing Through Death: The Monkey, Magic & Madness of Cambodia appearing on Connecticut Public Television about cultural genocide, endurance and rebirth in Cambodia following the brutality and devastation of the Khmer Rouge period by Janet Gardner. In addition it has been screened at the Asia Society, The Newseum in New York, and at Boston Asian American Film Festival.