2005 MRE Journalism Contest winners announced

Dayton Daily News team wins first Galloway Award

WASHINGTON – A team of reporters from the Dayton Daily News was named the winner of the $2,000 Joseph L. Galloway Award for Distinguished Journalism, the top prize in the 2005 Military Reporters & Editors journalism awards.

Reporters Jim DeBrosse, Russell Carollo, Larry Kaplow, Ken McCall, Mehul Srivastava and Mike Wagner worked for 10 months on their series of stories, “The Toll of War.”

In it, the reporters looked at non-combat deaths of soldiers, including suicides of soldiers returning from combat duty, and civil claims filed by Iraqi citizens against the U.S. military.

“The Dayton Daily News reporting team undertook three investigate projects of incredible breadth and depth to reveal the little-known costs of war on returning soldiers, their families and others,” said Ellen Shearer, assistant dean and William F. Thomas Professor of Journalism at the Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University, who judged the awards along with Associate Professor David Nelson of Medill.

Nelson praised the paper for uncovering the high incidence of suicides among soldiers who had served in Iraq as well as detailing the problems in how the military handles non-combat deaths. Especially important was the series on how little Iraqis receive when filing civil claims against the U.S. – stirring further animosity toward American policy, he said.

The winners of Galloway Award, as well as the other MRE writing awards, will be honored at a luncheon on Oct. 21 as part of the 2005 MRE convention.

Other winners include:

Overseas print coverage (more than 100,000 circulation)
Winner: Dexter Filkins, New York Times.
Distinguished reporting: Greg Jaffe, Wall Street Journal, and Lee Hill Kavanaugh, Kansas City Star.

Overseas print coverage (less than 100,000)
Winner: Steve Liewer, Stars and Stripes.

Domestic print coverage (more than 100,000)
Winner: Miles Moffeit, Arthur Kane, Amy Hardy and Marsha Austin, Denver Post.
Distinguished reporting: Sharon Cohen and Pauline Arrillaga, Associated Press.

Domestic print coverage (less than 100,000)
Winner: Kevin Graman, The Spokesman-Review.
Distinguished reporting: Joe Pappalardo, National Defense.

Photography (more than 100,000)
Winner: tie, Dean Hoffmeyer, Richmond Times-Dispatch, and Jon Fletcher, Florida Times-Union.
Distinguished photography: Team of Arkansas Democrat-Gazette photographers.

Photography (less than 100,000)
Winner: Terry Boyd, Stars and Stripes.