Taylor Family Award for Fairness in Newspapers

The Argus Leader in Sioux Falls won the 2010 Taylor Family Award for Fairness in Newspapers for “Growing Up Indian,” an eight-part series that examined the daunting challenges faced by children on South Dakota's
Steve Young


Devin Wagner
Native American reservations.

The series was produced by reporter Steve Young, photographer and multimedia producer Devin Wagner, managing editor Patrick Lalley, metro editor and project designer Jim Helland and multimedia manager Jim Cheesman.

“Growing Up Indian” tells the stories of three young women and a 3-year-old girl. The project was designed to raise public consciousness about what it is like to be a child on a reservation and show how that experience is both different and significantly more difficult than for many other children living in America today.

Taylor Award judge Tony Bartelme said “Growing Up Indian’ is “a truly ambitious eight-day series that brilliantly captures the challenges and hopes of Native Americans on a reservation in South Dakota. Crisp, even-handed writing, excellent photographs. Great work.”

Finalists

The Washington Post for “Paths to Jihad,” a five-part series on the pivotal choices made by young Muslims on four continents. Series reporters were Tara Bahrampour, Will Englund, Peter Finn, Sudarsan Raghavan and Emily Wax.

The Sacramento Bee for “Who Killed Amariana?” a three-part series that
Marjie Lundstrom
investigates the circumstances behind the death of a 4-year-old foster child in a mysterious arson fire. The team behind the series included Marjie Lundstrom, reporter for projects and investigations; Mitchell Brooks and Robert Dorrell, graphic artists; Hector Amezcua and José Luis Villegas, photographers; Julie Owens, team leader and universal copy desk; Amy Pyle, former assistant managing editor for projects and investigations; and Sheila Kern, researcher.

A dinner honoring the winners and finalists took place at the Nieman Foundation in March 2011.

The judges for this year’s Taylor Award were Stacy St. Clair, a reporter for The Chicago Tribune who together with several colleagues was winner of last year’s Taylor Award for the series “Clout Goes to College,” Tony Bartelme, a 2011 Nieman Fellow and projects reporter for The Post and Courier in Charleston, S.C., and Annmarie Timmins, a 2011 Nieman Fellow and reporter for the Concord Monitor in Concord, N.H. Nieman Foundation Curator Bob Giles served as jury chair.





The Taylor Family Award for Fairness in Newspapers was established in 2002 by members of the Taylor family who published The Boston Globe from 1872 to 1999. The $10,000 award encourages and recognizes fairness in news coverage by America’s daily newspapers. Second and third place finalists receive $1,000 each.