KU News Release

Topeka Capital-Journal wins award for stories about immigration

LAWRENCE — For its comprehensive coverage of immigration issues, the Topeka Capital-Journal has been named the winner of the 2006 Burton W. Marvin News Enterprise Award.

The Capital-Journal helped its readers examine immigration through many sets of eyes — legal as well as illegal — and it told the stories of successes as well as failures, the judges said.

Given since 1974 by the William Allen White Foundation, the Marvin award recognizes outstanding reporting by newspapers in Kansas. The award is named in honor of the foundation’s first director and a former dean of the journalism school at the University of Kansas. The award was presented Feb. 9 during William Allen White Day activities at KU.

“We are proud of the rich history of journalistic excellence in Kansas,” said Ann Brill, dean of the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications. “It is an honor for the school to be associated with this prestigious award. We congratulate the Topeka Capital-Journal.”

The story began than a 47-hour, one-way bus trip into the heart of Mexico. Reporter Tim Carpenter and photographer Thad Allton were joined by Allton’s son, Cooper Allton, who spoke Spanish. At a small Presbyterian church, they learned that as many as half of the congregation were supported by relatives living and working illegally in the United States. Jobs in the United States paid much more than workers could earn in Mexico.

The team also interviewed legal immigrants as they obtained citizenship in the United States. They examined the Oakland neighborhood of Topeka, long a haven for new immigrants. They included employers who hire immigrant labor, authorities who try to keep up with the flow of illegal workers and Kansans who want to put a stop to it.

The series of stories ran in the final four months of 2006. It was repackaged in a 20-page broadsheet special section, which was made available to Kansas legislators and others.

Other staff members at the Topeka Capital-Journal who took part in the award-winning series are Wayne Stewart, managing editor; Jan Biles, reporter; and Barbara Hollingsworth, education reporter.

Also, the judges commended compelling coverage of western Kansas and Salina water issues by the Salina Journal. The Journal, and reporter Duane Schrag, explained to Journal readers that last summer’s water emergency was directly caused by farming practices, not drought, as claimed by state water officials.

KU’s journalism school observes William Allen White Day annually in February to coincide with White’s birthday. This year, the White Foundation trustees chose Richard C. Clarkson, a 1956 KU journalism graduate and a nationally known photojournalist, to receive the citation, presented annually since 1950 to journalists who exemplify the ideals of White. White (1868-1944) was a nationally influential Kansas editor and publisher. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1923.

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