NY Times Reporting Wins Top Honors in 2012 Heywood Broun Awards

Rod Nordland of The New York Times won top honors at the 2012 TNG-CWA Heywood Broun Awards for his series, "Kabul's Killing Freezes." Nordland's series focused on the deaths of the youngest refugees sent to the camps in Afghanistan because their home areas were so hazardous; some children survived only a matter of days without a warming fire, a blanket or a jacket.

The award, which comes with a $5,000 check, is named for the crusading New York City columnist who helped found the Newspaper Guild and served as its first president. It recognizes excellence in journalism in the tradition of Broun – fighting injustice and righting wrongs.

There were 59 entries for the 2012 awards.

Two entries tied for in the print category for the 2012 "Award of Distinction:" "The Shame of the Boy Scouts" by Jason Felch and Kim Christensen of The Los Angeles Times and "Empty Desk Epidemic" by David Jackson and Gary Marx of The Chicago Tribune. Each team of reporters will receive a $750 check. There were no broadcast winners this year.

In "The Shame of the Boy Scouts," Felch and Christensen of The Los Angeles Times exposed a secret blacklist of suspected sexual predators among scout leaders. Long rumored but never before confirmed, the so-called "perversion files" were a confidential internal list dating back to 1919 of men suspected of molesting boys in their care.

In "Empty-Desk Epidemic," Jackson and Marx used bare numbers behind pervasive absenteeism in Chicago schools to tell the stories of students who missed more than a month of school or simply vanished from school rolls.

A special Honorable Mention and $500 award goes to Karen de Sá of The San Jose Mercury News for her series, "Loss of Trust." That series uncovered abuses by court-appointed conservators who charged exorbitant fees to the mentally disabled and elderly they were meant to serve.

Judges were Lawrence Margasak, a retired Associated Press reporter, Christopher Assaf, video editor at The Baltimore Sun, and Reuters reporter Pedro da Costa. Chairing the panel was Deborah Zabarenko, also of Reuters. The awards will be presented at a TNG-CWA event on Oct. 31 in Washington, D.C.