Three newspapers share William Allen White Foundation award for excellence

LAWRENCE -- Three newspapers shared this year's Burton Marvin Award, a reporting award given by the William Allen White Foundation and judged by faculty of the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas.

Honored were the Miami County Republic, a twice-weekly newspaper based in Paola; the Newton Kansan, a small daily newspaper based in Newton; and The Kansas City Star.

The Miami County Republic
In a midnight drug raid gone awry three years ago, a black Osawatomie man was shot to death in his bedroom by a white police officer from nearby Paola. Last spring the defendants -- the police, the cities of Paola and Osawatomie, and Miami County -- settled with the man's family for $3.5 million.

The Republic ran a comprehensive story on the settlement and for the next three months cajoled the family and the Paola city lawyers to lay out their "facts" of the shooting. Each side was promised an opportunity to tell its story. In turn, the newspaper planned to weave the two together in a balanced chronology. The newspaper agreed to share its stories with the family and the city beforehand to verify "facts" and clarify context.

The story package did three things. First, it showed why the cities and the county had settled even though they believed the drug raiders did no wrong. Second, it dispelled talk of a police cover-up. Third, it forced city and county officials to review and amend policies on forced-entry drug raids.

In its aggressive, thorough reporting, the Miami County Republic included the reading public in those extraordinary events. The Republic's persistence and effectiveness in going the extra mile to obtain information represents the finest tradition of the Burton Marvin Award.

The Newton Kansan
With a circulation of 7,804, the Newton Kansan ranks as a small daily by any measurement. However, the Kansan thought big on an issue that was becoming pervasive in Newton and throughout Kansas -- the rising epidemic of methamphetamine.

The Kansan's three-day series, later folded into an eight-page special section, used a local woman to illustrate the results of meth usage. It followed police into Harvey County, where 75 meth dump sites had been found in the previous year. It looked at the backlogged KBI lab. It got the grim news from drug-treatment professionals.

Clearly and concisely, the Newton Kansan explained what meth usage meant to that community and what its options were. The Kansan showed outstanding enterprise in dealing with an issue of great public concern.

The Kansas City Star
Reporter Judy Thomas had insights into the trucking industry that few if any reporters could claim. She had spent six years driving 18-wheelers for a living. What she remembered, she verified 15 years later by renting a tractor-trailer and driving it 6,000 miles on two trips through 15 states.

But that wasn't all. With the assistance of database editor Greg Reeves, she analyzed two massive federal accident files. They learned that truck accidents were such a low priority for federal and state governments that the databases were incomplete, didn't agree and, in fact, had been flawed for years.

Thomas also took weeks to collate and cross-reference electronic inspection files kept by federal regulators, never examined in such depth before. The patterns that emerged pointed to the same conclusion: that the government's vaunted inspection system was a facade for a failed program.

Her initiative and her painstaking efforts to understand all levels of this issue of vital public significance resulted in an extensive three-day series in December 2001 followed by her fascinating first-person diary of a trucker on the road, which appeared in Star Magazine on Dec. 30.

Thomas' aptly titled series, "Dead Tired," was an outstanding example of solid reporting.