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Seattle Cancer Center Investigation Wins 2002 Broun Award
Two reporters for The Seattle Times have been awarded The Newspaper-Guild-CWA Heywood Broun Award for an investigative series about experimental — and often fatal — treatments performed on patients without their informed consent at a renowned cancer center.
The series by reporters Duff Wilson and David Heath also revealed the financial ties some of the involved doctors had with a biomedical company that stood to make millions if the tests proved successful.
The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center waged a bitter fight against the series, “Uninformed Consent,” claiming the allegations were “blatantly false.” But the Broun judges said the reporters’ lucid explanation of complex medical procedures made it impossible for the center to refute the findings. “This was a courageous series in the best tradition of Heywood Broun,” the panel said.
The Broun award, first given in 1941, is named for the crusading columnist and Guild founder. It will be presented at a TNG-CWA banquet May 14, along with a $5,000 check. The annual award was established to recognize “individual journalistic achievement by members of the working media, particularly if it helps right a wrong or correct an injustice.”
Two other entries will also be honored: the Washington Post series, “The District’s Lost Children,” and an ABC 20/20 news program, “Empty Arms.” The awards each come with a $1,000 check.
The Washington Post series, by Sari Horwitz and Scott Higham, with the assistance of database editor Sarah Cohen, documented the deaths of 229 children between 1993 and 2000 after they were placed in Washington, D.C.’s child protection system.
The series, which also won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting, detailed how social service workers put children in unsafe homes and institutions and failed to take others out of dangerous environments. A database analysis showed how city officials routinely ignored warnings and recommendations. The series has prompted an overhaul in the District’s child welfare system.
The ABC 20/20 entry, produced and written by Joanna Breen and featuring correspondent Tom Jarriel, reported on the struggle of 12 adoptive couples whose Cambodian children were refused admission into the United States. Outraged viewers immediately flooded the White House and congressional offices with protests. Officials reversed their decision just two days later and the babies were allowed to enter the country with their new families.
The cancer center story, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, exposed the deaths of 80 of 82 patients in two clinical trials in the 1980s. Many of the patients stood a good chance of survival with conventional treatment, but weren’t fully advised of the risks of the experiments.
As a result of the series, the center has adopted stringent new conflict-of-interest rules and is being investigated by several outside agencies. Eleven family members have filed suit in federal court.
The story hasn’t been without controversy. Wall Street Journal Assistant Managing Editor Laura Landro, a former patient at the center and now a patron, called the series “reckless” and “fundamentally false” in a column. The Times has said it stands by the reporting.
The Hutchinson Center receives $142 million a year in public funding, yet officials vowed not to provide information for “negative” stories. In spite of the roadblocks, the reporters documented examples of questionable medicine, financial conflicts and misleading statements to patients.
After more than a year of researching the story, Wilson and Heath were nearly finished when 700 workers at the Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer went on strike in November 2000. “They walked, leaving their files inside the fenced-in, guarded Times building,” reporter Ron Judd wrote in a letter nominating his colleagues for the Broun award.
“Wilson and Heath … helped to keep the strike strong,” Judd continued. “Wilson persuaded fence sitters to stay out in the crucial early days. Heath coordinated legal action over unfair labor practices. Both were prominent on the picket lines.”
When the strike ended with a contract settlement seven weeks later, the reporting team finished the project. Judd said it “was lauded by workers and managers alike for helping to pull the newsroom back together and restoring pride in quality journalism at The Seattle Times.”
The Broun winners were selected from 188 entries from across the United States and Canada, including 44 broadcast entries. The judges were Tom Ferrick, metro columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer; Frank Swoboda, formerly a Washington Post editor and now president of the Herblock Foundation; Carl Sessions-Stepp, a journalism professor at the University of Maryland and a senior editor at the American Journalism Review; and Jean Thompson, an associate editor at The Baltimore Sun. The panel’s non-voting chairman was Charles Perlik, TNG president from 1969 to 1987.
The series by reporters Duff Wilson and David Heath also revealed the financial ties some of the involved doctors had with a biomedical company that stood to make millions if the tests proved successful.
The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center waged a bitter fight against the series, “Uninformed Consent,” claiming the allegations were “blatantly false.” But the Broun judges said the reporters’ lucid explanation of complex medical procedures made it impossible for the center to refute the findings. “This was a courageous series in the best tradition of Heywood Broun,” the panel said.
The Broun award, first given in 1941, is named for the crusading columnist and Guild founder. It will be presented at a TNG-CWA banquet May 14, along with a $5,000 check. The annual award was established to recognize “individual journalistic achievement by members of the working media, particularly if it helps right a wrong or correct an injustice.”
Two other entries will also be honored: the Washington Post series, “The District’s Lost Children,” and an ABC 20/20 news program, “Empty Arms.” The awards each come with a $1,000 check.
The Washington Post series, by Sari Horwitz and Scott Higham, with the assistance of database editor Sarah Cohen, documented the deaths of 229 children between 1993 and 2000 after they were placed in Washington, D.C.’s child protection system.
The series, which also won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting, detailed how social service workers put children in unsafe homes and institutions and failed to take others out of dangerous environments. A database analysis showed how city officials routinely ignored warnings and recommendations. The series has prompted an overhaul in the District’s child welfare system.
The ABC 20/20 entry, produced and written by Joanna Breen and featuring correspondent Tom Jarriel, reported on the struggle of 12 adoptive couples whose Cambodian children were refused admission into the United States. Outraged viewers immediately flooded the White House and congressional offices with protests. Officials reversed their decision just two days later and the babies were allowed to enter the country with their new families.
The cancer center story, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, exposed the deaths of 80 of 82 patients in two clinical trials in the 1980s. Many of the patients stood a good chance of survival with conventional treatment, but weren’t fully advised of the risks of the experiments.
As a result of the series, the center has adopted stringent new conflict-of-interest rules and is being investigated by several outside agencies. Eleven family members have filed suit in federal court.
The story hasn’t been without controversy. Wall Street Journal Assistant Managing Editor Laura Landro, a former patient at the center and now a patron, called the series “reckless” and “fundamentally false” in a column. The Times has said it stands by the reporting.
The Hutchinson Center receives $142 million a year in public funding, yet officials vowed not to provide information for “negative” stories. In spite of the roadblocks, the reporters documented examples of questionable medicine, financial conflicts and misleading statements to patients.
After more than a year of researching the story, Wilson and Heath were nearly finished when 700 workers at the Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer went on strike in November 2000. “They walked, leaving their files inside the fenced-in, guarded Times building,” reporter Ron Judd wrote in a letter nominating his colleagues for the Broun award.
“Wilson and Heath … helped to keep the strike strong,” Judd continued. “Wilson persuaded fence sitters to stay out in the crucial early days. Heath coordinated legal action over unfair labor practices. Both were prominent on the picket lines.”
When the strike ended with a contract settlement seven weeks later, the reporting team finished the project. Judd said it “was lauded by workers and managers alike for helping to pull the newsroom back together and restoring pride in quality journalism at The Seattle Times.”
The Broun winners were selected from 188 entries from across the United States and Canada, including 44 broadcast entries. The judges were Tom Ferrick, metro columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer; Frank Swoboda, formerly a Washington Post editor and now president of the Herblock Foundation; Carl Sessions-Stepp, a journalism professor at the University of Maryland and a senior editor at the American Journalism Review; and Jean Thompson, an associate editor at The Baltimore Sun. The panel’s non-voting chairman was Charles Perlik, TNG president from 1969 to 1987.