2003 George Polk Awards at a Glance

Foreign Reporting – Somini Sengupta of The New York Times, for dispatches from West Africa that lent both a political and human dimension to the horrific conflicts in a region that was not widely covered in the American press.
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/international/africa/04POLK.html

Radio Reporting – National Public Radio’s Anne Garrels for coverage of the war in Iraq that captured the terror, desperation, frustration and anger of Iraqi men, women and children under siege.
http://www.npr.org

Photojournalism - Carolyn Cole of the Los Angeles Times for brutally honest portrayals of life in Iraq and Liberia, conveying the stark reality of everyday life during times of war.
http://www.latimes.com/coleimages

Economics Reporting – Nancy Cleeland, Abigail Goldman, Evelyn Iritani and Tyler Marshall of the Los Angeles Times for “The Wal-Mart Effect,” a series that explored the way in which the world’s largest corporation plays a role in shaping cultures and economies of entire countries.
http://www.latimes.com/walmart

Business Reporting – Pete Engardio, Aaron Bernstein and Manjeet Kripalani of BusinessWeek for their report, “Is Your Job Next?,” their exposé on outsourcing that revealed how American Corporations are relocating white-collar jobs to developing countries.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/toc/03_05/B3818magazine.htm

Labor Reporting – David Barstow, Lowell Bergman, Neil Docherty, David Rummel and Linden MacIntyre for “A Dangerous Business,” a joint investigation by The New York Times, the PBS television program Frontline and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, that demonstrated how lax enforcement of workplace safety rules at the foundries of a major producer of cast iron water and sewer pipes contributed to the injuries of 4,500 workers and the deaths of nine.
http://www.nytimes.com/work
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/workplace/

National Reporting – Cam Simpson, Flynn McRoberts and Liz Sly of the Chicago Tribune for “Tossed Out of America,” showing how the government targeted men from Muslim countries living in the United States for mass deportation, even though they posed no risk to national security.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/site/chi-031116immigration-storygallery.storygallery

Internet Reporting –The Center of Public Integrity for “Windfalls of War: U.S. Contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
http://www.publicintegrity.org/wow/

Magazine Reporting – Southern Exposure magazine for “Banking on Misery: Citigroup, Wall Street and the Fleecing of the South,” an investigation that exposed how the predatory lending practices of powerful corporations victimize mostly low-income, African-American and elderly southerners.
http://www.southernstudies.org/selatestissue.asp
http://www.southernstudies.org/reports/bankingonmisery.pdf

State Reporting – Dave Altimari, Jon Lender and Edmund H. Mahony of the Hartford Courant, whose reports raised questions about Connecticut Governor John G. Rowlands’ dealings with state contractors and his use of state workers for personal home improvements.
http://www.ctnow.com/rowland

Education Reporting – Daniel Golden of The Wall Street Journal whose series on “white affirmative action” at elite schools helped to intensify the national debate over affirmative action programs for applicants of color and possibly influenced the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision affirming the constitutionality of such programs.
Wall Street Journal series by Daniel Golden
http://www.brooklyn.liu.edu/polk/2004/2.html

Local Reporting – Duff Wilson, Brian Joseph and Sheila Farr of The Seattle Times for “The Art of Deception,” their series that exposed a local gallery’s unscrupulous dealings, tracing forged Asian art and artifacts to a noted Hong Kong-based economist, prompting state and federal actions and closure of the gallery.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/news/local/links/chinese_art/

Television Reporting – Andrew Smith and Liviu Tipurita for “Easy Prey: Inside the Child Sex Trade,” a CNN Presents investigation from Romania to Italy that documented the sexual exploitation of homeless, desperate children.
http://www.cnn.com/cnn/programs/presents

The George Polk Career Award – F. Gilman Spencer, former editor of The Denver Post, New York Daily News, Philadelphia Daily News and The Trentonian, whose unflinching style and electric energy inspired and nurtured some of this generation’s finest editors, reporters and columnists.
http://www.brooklyn.liu.edu/polk/2004/1.html