Wall Street Journal, Miami Herald, Seattle Times, Chicago Tribune Among National Press Club Award Winners

WASHINGTON, July 28 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Wall Street Journal won two awards and the Miami Herald, Seattle Times and Chicago Tribune won one apiece in the annual National Press Club journalism awards. PBS's Frontline was among the broadcast winners. Judges also recognized several non-traditional journalism outlets, such as ClimateWire.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20080917/NPCLOGO)

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080917/NPCLOGO)

"Despite layoffs and cutbacks, the annual National Press Club awards show that outstanding journalism is alive and well," said National Press Club President Alan Bjerga, a reporter for Bloomberg News. "Whether through print, broadcast or online, journalists continue to produce excellent reports, enhancing the public's knowledge of important issues."

Wall Street Journal reporters Andy Pasztor and Susan Carey won the Dornheim Award for their coverage of the crash of a Colgan Air turboprop near Buffalo. They revealed the minimal training of the pilots and shockingly detailed a lack of discipline in the cockpit. Their reporting drew the public's attention to large issues of a flight school using students as pilots in its own airline and explored how a hiring boom at commuter airlines had led to crews with minimal training.

Another Journal reporter, Barry Newman, won the Gingras Humor Award.

Herald reporters Michael Sallah, Rob Barry and Lucy Komisar won the consumer journalism award for print with their expose of Allen Stanford's massive Ponzi scheme that cost investors $7 billion. The reporters combed through mountains of records and emails and conducted interviews with company insiders to develop a package of absorbing stories about a financial player who fended off government oversight in the United States and in Caribbean countries.

The Herald's work helped lead to a bill in the Florida legislature that would force state agents to monitor all offshore finance firms in Florida -- including foreign trust offices -- for fraud, money laundering and the destruction of key records.

The Seattle Times won the Friedenberg Online Journalism Award for its multimedia coverage of the killings of four police officers. The Times did what everyone says newspapers are supposed to be doing to survive in its multimedia coverage of the killings of four police officers. The print stories were supplemented with video, photos, and applications such as Google Wave and Dipity mapping. Live updates were sent out via Twitter.

The Chicago Tribune won the Ryle Geriatrics award for its expose of two nursing home scandals, the use of psychotropic drugs to keep nursing home residents mute and uncomplaining, and the warehousing of violent felons in some nursing homes, where they prey on the elderly residents. The paper also offered readers an online data base where they could search for the inspection and complaint records of nursing homes in Illinois. The article prompted a state investigation likely to lead to reform measures by the legislature.

On the broadcast side, PBS' Frontline won the consumer journalism award for "The Card Game," which interviews with the lobbyist for the financial services industry, top lawmakers, consumers who faced tighter credit and two industry experts credited with practices such as "free checking."

Other winners:

Consumer Journalism (periodicals): Bloomberg BusinessWeek "Policing the Cleanup."

Edwin M. Hood Diplomatic: Lisa Friedman, ClimateWire: "China: The Yin & Yang of Climate Change."

Washington Regional Reporting: Tommy Burr, Salt Lake Tribune.

Rowse Press Criticism: David Folkenflik, NPR, "Why GQ Doesn't Want Russians to Read Its Story; Dean Starkman, Columbia Journalism Review, "Power Problem."

Newsletter Journalism: Christopher Castelli, "Inside the Navy."

Free Animal Reporting (print): "A Cure for Euthanasia?" David Grimm, Science Magazine.

Free Animal Reporting (broadcast): "Stampede to Oblivion," George Knapp, reporter and Matthew Adams, photojournalist/editor, KLAS-TV, Las Vegas, Nev.

Hume Award for Political Journalism: Joseph J. Schatz of CQ, "Duet with the Dragon."

Friedheim Travel Award: Al Letson for his public radio broadcast of "Brooklyn - Change Happens" on the series "State of the Re:Union."

SOURCE National Press Club