News from The Newspaper Guild-CWA
The Union for the Information Age
For Immediate Release
March 19, 2007
For More Information
Jeff Miller or Candice Johnson
CWA Communications, 202-434-1168
jmiller@cwa-union.org and cjohnson@cwa-union.org
Hartford Courant Reporters Win Top Honor
in 2006 TNG-CWA Broun Awards
Washington, D.C. – Lisa Chedekel and Matthew Kauffman
have been awarded the 2006 Heywood Broun Award for
their series of stories investigating the U.S.
government’s ongoing deployment to Iraq of soldiers
who suffer pre-existing mental illness and other
psychological conditions.
In their major investigatory series, “Mentally Unfit,
Forced to Fight,” the two Hartford Courant reporters
revealed that senior military officials have sent
troops into combat, despite clear evidence of bipolar
disorder, depression, suicidal episodes and Post
Traumatic Stress Trauma.
Their reporting also uncovered the fact that, in spite
of federal requirements that military recruits undergo
mental health screening, fewer than 1 in 300 sees a
mental health professional before being deployed.
Treatment of soldiers in the field is even worse, the
reporters found, as many soldiers who seek relief from
combat stress are simply given anti-depressants and
sent back to their duties. The Courant series also
spotlighted Army reports showing that senior officers
knowingly disregarded the suicidal propensities of
several soldiers.
The judges said the series also demonstrated another
element of the Broun legacy: “In publicizing the
little-known plight of mentally ill soldiers, the
paper helped prompt new legislation addressing the
flaws in the military’s mental health system.”
Heywood Broun was the most prominent founder of the
American Newspaper Guild in 1934, a crusading
columnist who believed individual journalists have the
power to cause social change.
The Broun award is named for the union’s founder and
first president, and includes a plaque and $5,000 cash
prize. It is awarded annually by The Newspaper
Guild-CWA and will be presented this year on May 3 at
the union’s Freedom Award Fund dinner in Washington,
D.C. The keynote speaker at this year’s event will be
Newsweek senior editor and columnist and NBC Network
contributor Jonathan Alter.
The Herbert Block Freedom Award, also with a $5,000
prize, will be awarded to Josh Wolf, a San Francisco
freelance journalist who has been held in federal
prison since August 2006 for refusing to turn over
video he shot of a July 8, 2005, demonstration in San
Francisco.
Federal prosecutors looking into possible crimes
committed during the protest called Wolf before a
federal grand jury in February 2006. He was initially
jailed in August, freed for a short period during an
appeal and was returned to prison on Sept. 22, 2006,
where he remains. His attorney has stated that the
video Wolf shot does not depict the crimes being
investigated, but does include interviews with some of
the protestors who spoke on the condition that their
identities would be protected. Wolf continues to
appeal the ruling.
Debbie Cenziper of the Miami Herald received the Broun
award for substantial distinction for her reporting in
the series, “House of Lies,” an investigation that
uncovered corruption at one of the nation’s largest
housing authorities – the Miami-Dade Housing Agency.
She will receive a $1,000 prize.
In the broadcast division, Lorrie Taylor of WJW-TV in
Cleveland was recognized for “Disappearing Homes,” a
story about a predatory real estate company. She also
will receive a $1,000 prize.
The award winners were selected from entries from
across the United States and Canada.
This year's Broun judges were Deborah Howell,
ombudswoman for the Washington Post; Tom Kunkel, dean
of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the
University of Maryland; Chris Lehmann, senior editor
at CQ Weekly; and Jack Nelson, retired Washington
bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times. The judging
panel was chaired by Dick Peery, the longtime
president of the Northeast Ohio Newspaper Guild who
retired last year after 35 years with the Cleveland
Plain Dealer.
The David S. Barr award also will be presented at the
May 3 event, recognizing a college and high school
student for achievements in journalism, with
scholarship awards of $1,500 and $500, respectively.
Kendyl R. Salcito of the University of British
Columbia won for her article, “War Brewing Over
Mineral Rights in Rural BC,” a report on a
controversial government program that allows mineral
staking on private property. In the high school
division, Elizabeth Curry Andrews of Henry W. Grady
High School in Atlanta won for her story, “Fulton
County Blues,” which exposed the overcrowding and
unsanitary conditions at the courthouse jail in Fulton
County.
The Broun award was first presented for work done in
1941 and is given annually in recognition of
“individual journalistic achievement by members of the
working media, particularly if it helps right a wrong
or correct an injustice.”
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The Newspaper Guild-CWA represents 35,000 journalists
and newspaper workers in the U.S., Canada and Puerto
Rico. The Communications Workers of America
represents more than 700,000 workers in media and
information technology, telecommunications, printing
and publishing, public employment, health care, higher
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