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Broun Winner's Series Exposed Brutal Juvenile Prison Conditions
When reporter Mary Hargrove first looked into conditions in Arkansas’ juvenile prisons, what she found was sickening.
At an intake center — a closed adult jail that wasn’t renovated — 130 teenagers were crammed into space for 80 prisoners. Three boys in every cell had to sleep on the ground, some with their heads against toilets that overflowed. Boys who’d done nothing more than steal a pack of cigarettes or fail to get a hunting license were being lodged with violent, sexual predators. Inmates attacked them. Guards beat them.
Her reporting led the facility to be shut down. But other proposed changes weren’t made, leading Hargrove to write a second series a year later. She found that children were being warehoused without badly needed physical or psychological treatment. The result was violence inside and outside the system — attacks on weaker children by the stronger, more dangerous ones and attacks on citizens by dangerous youths released from state custody.
Her hard-hitting series was rewarded with the Heywood Broun Award, given annually by The Newspaper Guild-CWA. At a National Press Club luncheon honoring her, Hargrove, an associate editor for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, said the honor felt like a “lifetime achievement award.”
While many people say they don’t care what happens to troubled juveniles behind bars, Hargrove said everyone has reason to be concerned about abuse. “If I can’t teach you to care any other way, remember that these kids are going to be released into your own backyard,” she said.
CWA President Morton Bahr and TNG-CWA President Linda Foley said Hargrove’s reporting reflects the values of Heywood Broun, a crusading columnist and most prominent founder of the American News-paper Guild, which became TNG-CWA.
“Broun practiced a simple but powerful code of journalism,” Bahr said. “He believed reporters should help right wrongs, ease social ills and call the mighty to account.”
But Bahr said that’s not easy for reporters anymore, as newspaper budget cuts put reporting like Hargrove’s at risk. “A recent study by the Pew Research Center found that more than a quarter of journalists polled said they had avoided pursuing newsworthy stories that might conflict with the financial interests of their news organizations or advertisers,” he said.
Hargrove and three honorable mentions were selected from 208 entries from across the country and Canada. They included 55 television entries, a record number.
The honorable mentions were awarded to: reporter Darcy Spears and photojournalist/editor Steve Miller of KVBC News, an NBC affiliate in Las Vegas, for “When Justice Fails,” a segment on a young man wrongfully imprisoned for 15 years; Carl Strock, for his columns in the Schnectady (N.Y.) Gazette that were instrumental in winning a new trial for a man accused of sexually abusing a young girl; and the late Lars-Erik Nelson, for his New York Daily News columns criticizing The New York Times coverage of the Wen Ho Lee nuclear espionage case.
The judges were Marvin Kalb, executive director of the Washington office of the Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy; Alan L. Otten, former Washington bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal; Sanford “Whitey” Watzman, retired Cleveland Plain-Dealer reporter; and Lena Williams, a reporter for The New York Times. The panel’s non-voting chairman was Bill McLeman, former director of organizing for TNG.
The judges commended Hargrove for reporting that “was completely in keeping with Heywood Broun’s passionate championing of the underdog and the disadvantaged.”
As a result of her series, several bills aimed at reforming the juvenile justice system were introduced in the State Legislature.
At an intake center — a closed adult jail that wasn’t renovated — 130 teenagers were crammed into space for 80 prisoners. Three boys in every cell had to sleep on the ground, some with their heads against toilets that overflowed. Boys who’d done nothing more than steal a pack of cigarettes or fail to get a hunting license were being lodged with violent, sexual predators. Inmates attacked them. Guards beat them.
Her reporting led the facility to be shut down. But other proposed changes weren’t made, leading Hargrove to write a second series a year later. She found that children were being warehoused without badly needed physical or psychological treatment. The result was violence inside and outside the system — attacks on weaker children by the stronger, more dangerous ones and attacks on citizens by dangerous youths released from state custody.
Her hard-hitting series was rewarded with the Heywood Broun Award, given annually by The Newspaper Guild-CWA. At a National Press Club luncheon honoring her, Hargrove, an associate editor for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, said the honor felt like a “lifetime achievement award.”
While many people say they don’t care what happens to troubled juveniles behind bars, Hargrove said everyone has reason to be concerned about abuse. “If I can’t teach you to care any other way, remember that these kids are going to be released into your own backyard,” she said.
CWA President Morton Bahr and TNG-CWA President Linda Foley said Hargrove’s reporting reflects the values of Heywood Broun, a crusading columnist and most prominent founder of the American News-paper Guild, which became TNG-CWA.
“Broun practiced a simple but powerful code of journalism,” Bahr said. “He believed reporters should help right wrongs, ease social ills and call the mighty to account.”
But Bahr said that’s not easy for reporters anymore, as newspaper budget cuts put reporting like Hargrove’s at risk. “A recent study by the Pew Research Center found that more than a quarter of journalists polled said they had avoided pursuing newsworthy stories that might conflict with the financial interests of their news organizations or advertisers,” he said.
Hargrove and three honorable mentions were selected from 208 entries from across the country and Canada. They included 55 television entries, a record number.
The honorable mentions were awarded to: reporter Darcy Spears and photojournalist/editor Steve Miller of KVBC News, an NBC affiliate in Las Vegas, for “When Justice Fails,” a segment on a young man wrongfully imprisoned for 15 years; Carl Strock, for his columns in the Schnectady (N.Y.) Gazette that were instrumental in winning a new trial for a man accused of sexually abusing a young girl; and the late Lars-Erik Nelson, for his New York Daily News columns criticizing The New York Times coverage of the Wen Ho Lee nuclear espionage case.
The judges were Marvin Kalb, executive director of the Washington office of the Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy; Alan L. Otten, former Washington bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal; Sanford “Whitey” Watzman, retired Cleveland Plain-Dealer reporter; and Lena Williams, a reporter for The New York Times. The panel’s non-voting chairman was Bill McLeman, former director of organizing for TNG.
The judges commended Hargrove for reporting that “was completely in keeping with Heywood Broun’s passionate championing of the underdog and the disadvantaged.”
As a result of her series, several bills aimed at reforming the juvenile justice system were introduced in the State Legislature.