Several IRE Members Win 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Awards

Congratulations to the several IRE members, as well as all the recipients, on their 2013 duPont-Columbia Awards. Their hard work and dedication to good investigative journalism helps keep the public informed and educated on important topics that affect their daily lives and communities. 

Heather Catallo along with her colleagues at WXYZ-Detroit received a silver baton for their series, "Wayne County Confidential". "A model series of watchdog investigative reports that exposed local government corruption and resulted in criminal charges and an ongoing FBI probe".

Greg Phillips, Mikel Schaefer and Lee Zurik along with their team at WVUE-New Orleans were awarded a silver baton for their original stories, "Dirty Deeds" and "Hiding Behind the Badge". With the help of DocumentCloud, Zurik and his team were able to easily expose the corruption and fraud, both past and current, that they uncovered.

Susan Phillips, Chris Amico, Scott Detrow and colleagues at witf, WHYY & NPR were honored with an award for their work on StateImpact Pennsylvania. "This joint reporting project from witf in Harrisburg, WHYY in Philadelphia, and NPR showed the significant impact of natural gas drilling on Pennsylvania residents." The team used DocumentCloud to "reveal previously unreported aspects of a new gas drilling law, including a provision that would require health professionals to sign confidentiality agreements in order to get access to chemical exposure information and developments in the state’s efforts to establish a natural gas impact fee."

Alison Young, Peter Eisler, John Hillkirk, Blake Morrison, Brad Heath, Anthony DeBarros, Christopher Schnaars and the team behind Ghost Factories won a silver baton for their "interactive investigative report that uncovered hundreds of forgotten lead factories and the health hazards they left behind." Young and her team used DocumentCloud extensively to file and keep track of the thousands of pages acquired through FOIA requests.

Karen Foshay along with her colleagues of KCET-Sourthern California were awarded a silver baton for their original story, "SoCal Connected: Courting Disaster". "Their important reporting revealed the consequences of budget cuts to Los Angeles' court system and how much of a devastating impact it can have on families."

CBS News' Scott Pelley along with Clarissa Ward received a silver baton for their "gripping series of daily news reports from inside the deadly conflict in Syria", "CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley: Inside Syria".

And Andrew Cohen along with entire crew for the documentary "Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry", a "compelling portrait of the internationally recognized artist Ai Weiwei, filmmaker Alison Klayman presents an insightful look at China and its transition in a digital age."