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Heywood Broun Award Goes to Reporter Who Solved 33-Year-Old Klan Murder Case
The 1998 Heywood Broun Award for distinguished journalism has been won by Jerry Mitchell, reporter for The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi, for extensive reporting on the Ku Klux Klan that resulted in the murder conviction of Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers.
The contest judges also awarded special commendations to three reporters at the Philadelphia Inquirer-Mark Fazlollah, Michael Matza and Craig McCoy-and to Murray Oliver of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Mitchell, who covers civil rights for the 105,000-circulation Clarion- Ledger, began digging last January into the 1966 firebombing death of NAACP leader Vernon Dahmer. Although Bowers had been described by others convicted in the crime as its mastermind, four hung juries had failed to convict him-until reporter Mitchell tracked down another participant in the firebombing, who later turned himself in and became the key witness in a fifth, and final, trial.
Attesting to the impact of Mitchell's work, Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore wrote that his "dedicated and tenacious reporting" made the case possible. "He exposed the truth and began the process of healing that my beloved state sorely needed," Moore added-a sentiment echoed by the Dahmer family, which noted that Bowers' conviction "reinforces the fact that the Mississippi of today is not the Mississippi of the past."
The five-member panel of Broun Award judges, after reviewing a record- setting 238 entries in the annual competition, readily agreed. "This was the perfect fulfillment of righting a wrong and correcting an injustice" - a key criterion of the Broun Award -- the judges said. "What comes through is his doggedness under what apparently were somewhat dangerous conditions."
The annual award, which carries a $5,000 prize, is sponsored by The Newspaper Guild-CWA, an affiliate of the Communications Workers of America.
While lauding the overall high quality of entries, the judges singled out two others for special commendation: "Downgrading the Offense," a two-part series in The Philadelphia Inquirer, exposed the City of Brotherly Love's "creative crime accounting" to falsely represent it as one of America's safest big cities. "Children of the Street," a chilling account of child-prostitution in Saskatoon-described by one subject as the "Kiddie Capital of Canada"-was the first time in the Award's 59 years that a television entry won special mention.
Judging this year's entries were Bob Davis, a White House correspondent for the Wall Street Journal and co-author of the recently published book "Prosperity"; William J. Eaton, curator of the Humphrey Journalism Fellowship Program at the University of Maryland and former Washington correspondent for the Los Angeles Times; Geneva Overholser, columnist for the Washington Post Writers Group and former Post ombudsman; and Jonathan Whitten, producer for CBC-TV. Charles Dale, a retired president of The Newspaper Guild, served as the panel's chairman.
Named after the crusading columnist and most prominent founder of the American Newspaper Guild, the Heywood Broun Award was first presented in 1941 to recognize "individual journalistic achievement by members of the working media, particularly if it helps right a wrong or correct an injustice." The award and check to the winner will be presented at a luncheon banquet April 26 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
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The contest judges also awarded special commendations to three reporters at the Philadelphia Inquirer-Mark Fazlollah, Michael Matza and Craig McCoy-and to Murray Oliver of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Mitchell, who covers civil rights for the 105,000-circulation Clarion- Ledger, began digging last January into the 1966 firebombing death of NAACP leader Vernon Dahmer. Although Bowers had been described by others convicted in the crime as its mastermind, four hung juries had failed to convict him-until reporter Mitchell tracked down another participant in the firebombing, who later turned himself in and became the key witness in a fifth, and final, trial.
Attesting to the impact of Mitchell's work, Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore wrote that his "dedicated and tenacious reporting" made the case possible. "He exposed the truth and began the process of healing that my beloved state sorely needed," Moore added-a sentiment echoed by the Dahmer family, which noted that Bowers' conviction "reinforces the fact that the Mississippi of today is not the Mississippi of the past."
The five-member panel of Broun Award judges, after reviewing a record- setting 238 entries in the annual competition, readily agreed. "This was the perfect fulfillment of righting a wrong and correcting an injustice" - a key criterion of the Broun Award -- the judges said. "What comes through is his doggedness under what apparently were somewhat dangerous conditions."
The annual award, which carries a $5,000 prize, is sponsored by The Newspaper Guild-CWA, an affiliate of the Communications Workers of America.
While lauding the overall high quality of entries, the judges singled out two others for special commendation: "Downgrading the Offense," a two-part series in The Philadelphia Inquirer, exposed the City of Brotherly Love's "creative crime accounting" to falsely represent it as one of America's safest big cities. "Children of the Street," a chilling account of child-prostitution in Saskatoon-described by one subject as the "Kiddie Capital of Canada"-was the first time in the Award's 59 years that a television entry won special mention.
Judging this year's entries were Bob Davis, a White House correspondent for the Wall Street Journal and co-author of the recently published book "Prosperity"; William J. Eaton, curator of the Humphrey Journalism Fellowship Program at the University of Maryland and former Washington correspondent for the Los Angeles Times; Geneva Overholser, columnist for the Washington Post Writers Group and former Post ombudsman; and Jonathan Whitten, producer for CBC-TV. Charles Dale, a retired president of The Newspaper Guild, served as the panel's chairman.
Named after the crusading columnist and most prominent founder of the American Newspaper Guild, the Heywood Broun Award was first presented in 1941 to recognize "individual journalistic achievement by members of the working media, particularly if it helps right a wrong or correct an injustice." The award and check to the winner will be presented at a luncheon banquet April 26 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
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