The Polk Folk
For some outstanding journalism, take a look at the recently announced winners of the George Polk Awards. I was happy to see that many of the winners were featured in some of my favorite News Gems of the past year.
Lydia Polgreen of the New York Times, winner of the Polk Award for best foreign reporting, appeared in News Gems for her coverage of last summer's elections in the Congo and for her reporting from Darfur.
The Polk for environmental reporting went to Kenneth R. Weiss and Usha Lee McFarling of the Los Angeles Times, who were featured in News Gems for their amazing "Altered Oceans" series detailing the devastation to marine life caused by pollution.
Lisa Chedekel and Matthew Kauffman of the Hartford Courant won a Polk for military reporting and were earlier highlighted in News Gems for their series on the Army's poor screening and treatment of soldiers with mental health problems.
A July News Gems star, Debbie Cenziper of the Miami Herald, won the Polk award for metropolitan reporting for her terrific investigation of how the Miami-Dade Housing Agency gave millions of dollars to developers who in return built nothing.
A special shout out to my Medill colleague, Bruce Sagan, whose weekly Lakefront Outlook earned the Polk award for local reporting after its five-person staff and an intern exposed how an economic development project on Chicago's South Side ended up as a money-losing venture staffed by the local alderman's family and cronies.
To check out all the Polk winners, go to www.brooklyn.liu.edu/polk/press/2006.html