Welcome to a special edition of McClatchy Journalism, honoring the winners of McClatchy’s 2017 President’s Awards.
The McClatchy President’s Awards, now in their 18th year, recognize the best work of 2017 by the company’s 30 newsrooms.
Judging this year’s competition were Tim Grieve, McClatchy’s vice president for news, plus three top college newspaper journalists: Isabella Cueto, editor-in-chief of The Miami Hurricane at the University of Miami; Hannah Knowles, editor-in-chief of The Stanford Daily at Stanford University, and Kelly Powers, editor-in-chief of The Daily Collegian at Penn State University.
Secret Kansas
A series of stories exposing a penchant for secrecy that permeates virtually every part of state government in Kansas, from the workings of the legislature to the actions of police.
The Kansas City Star
Fight Club
A Miami Herald investigation into Florida’s juvenile justice system.
By Carol Marbin Miller, Audra D.S. Burch and Emily Michot
The Miami Herald
Wrong Side of the Bars
A hidden world of drugs, sex and gang violence thrives inside North Carolina’s prisons — and officers who are paid to prevent such corruption are instead fueling it.
Ames Alexander, Gavin Off, Elizabeth Leland, Doug Miller, Gary Schwab
The Charlotte Observer
Ali Rizvi
McClatchy Video Lab
Slaves of the Sex Trade
Women and children are sold for sex every day online and in the streets of Fresno. Getting them out can be difficult, but some are trying.
By Rory Appleton
The Fresno Bee
Too Young?
The Central Valley is home to California’s highest birth rates among teenagers.
By Mackenzie Mays
The Fresno Bee
Swatting
Breaking news coverage and accountability reporting on a fatal police shooting in Wichita.
The Wichita Eagle
SLO County Jail inmate died naked on the floor as deputies watched, chilling video shows
Story and video by Matt Fountain
San Luis Obispo Tribune
Sometime in the Night
A baby dies amid squalor, a family’s secret is revealed
By George Pawlaczyk and Beth Hundsdorfer
Belleville News Democrat
Out Here in America
Podcast focuses on LBGTQ people who live in the South and in smaller communities across the country.
Justin Mitchell, Amanda McCoy, Brittany Ridgway
(Biloxi) Sun-Herald
Davin Coburn, Jordan-Marie Smith, Desmond Barlow, Connie Hyberg
McClatchy Video Lab
Hope and a Back Handspring
Texas cheerleader who refuses to let Down Syndrome define her.
Jessica Koscielniak and Sarah Whitmire
McClatchy Video Lab
Youth Baseball Gone Wild
‘You’re selling your son’s soul for a six-dollar trophy’
By Jeff Caplan
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Jailed to Death
51 inmates died in NC county jails in the past five years after being left unsupervised for longer than state regulations allow, investigation shows.
By Dan Kane and David Raynor
The (Raleigh) News & Observer
