Taylor Family Award for Fairness in Newspapers

SimpleViewer requires JavaScript and the Flash Player. Get Flash.

A team of reporters from The Chicago Tribune won the 2009 Taylor Family Award for Fairness in Newspapers for “Clout Goes to College,” an in-depth look at improper influence peddling in the admissions process at the University of Illinois.

Tribune reporters Jodi S. Cohen, Stacy St. Clair, Tara Malone and Robert Becker worked with editor Tracy Van Moorlehem and graphic artist Keith Claxton to produce the series. 2009 Taylor Award finalists were:

  • The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.) and investigative reporter J. Andrew Curliss for his “Executive Privilege” series, an investigation of the legal and ethical problems surrounding former North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley and his associates at North Carolina State University. Curliss wrote the series with Steve Riley, senior editor/investigations; Jay Price, staff writer; and Steve Merelman, Page One editor.

  • The Wall Street Journal and reporter Farnaz Fassihi for “Hearts, Minds and Blood: The Battle for Iran,” a collection of reports that examined the harsh government crackdown on protesters in Iran following the country’s presidential election in June 2009. Fassihi was assisted in her reporting by editors Jesse Pesta and Chip Cummins, Deputy Managing Editor Michael Williams and Steve Stecklow, senior special writer.

A dinner honoring the winners and finalists took place at the Nieman Foundation on April 8, 2010.

Judges for the award were Ames Alexander, an investigative reporter for The Charlotte Observer who together with several colleagues was winner of last year’s Taylor Award for their series “The Cruelest Cuts”; Monica Campbell, a freelance journalist who covers Mexico for national news publications and a 2010 Nieman Fellow; Mike Pride, editor emeritus of the Concord (N.H.) Monitor and a 1985 Nieman Fellow; and Anita Snow, former AP bureau chief in Havana and a 2010 Nieman Fellow.

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.