Three journalists from Reveal have been named finalists for the Livingston Awards — a national honor bestowed on journalists under 35 — for their investigations into rehab work camps and domestic terrorism.
Reporters Stan Alcorn, Amy Julia Harris and Shoshana Walter were among finalists for the Livingston Awards in the national reporting category. The University of Michigan — which funds the awards along with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation — announced the finalists Tuesday, honoring work by professionals under the age of 35 in local, national and international reporting.
Alcorn was selected as a finalist for the radio story, Trial and Terror, which aired on Reveal, a co-production with PRX. The story, a joint investigation with the Investigative Fund, took a comprehensive look at domestic terrorism in the United States to find that most terrorists in the United States are motivated by right-wing ideologies like white supremacy, while FBI resources and harsh punishments focus overwhelmingly on terrorists acting in the name of Islam.
The story brought those findings to life through a pair of cases that show how a terrorist’s ideology affects his punishment. Mohamed Osman Mohamud was sentenced to 30 years in prison after being directed to detonate a fake bomb by undercover agents of the FBI. Cody Seth Crawford was sentenced to two years’ probation for firebombing Mohamud’s mosque in retaliation. The story built on a database created by a team at the Investigative Fund led by David Neiwert.
Harris and Walter were named finalists for All Work. No Pay. The investigation uncovered a system of indentured servitude posing as drug rehabilitation, and has received several other commendations. It was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and won the Sigma Delta Chi award for investigative reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists.
Their investigation found that judges have steering drug defendants into rehabs that are little more than lucrative work camps for private industry. The beneficiaries included politicians and Fortune 500 companies such as Coca-Cola and Walmart.
After Harris and Walter published their first story in October, government investigations were launched, companies stopped using the unpaid labor and four class-action status lawsuits alleging slavery and human trafficking were filed.
Walter won a Livingston Award in 2015 as well.
The Livingston Awards judge print, broadcast and online journalism against one another and are the largest all-media, general reporting prize in American journalism.
In a statement on the University of Michigan’s website, contest organizers said the awards finalists’ work “demonstrates the singular power of journalism to document and interpret the issues and events shaping our times. It is a privilege to recognize such a broad range of talented reporters, committed to bringing depth, nuance and truth to our understanding of the world.”
Winners in each category will be announced June 6 at a New York City luncheon. Find a list of the finalists here.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Republish Our Content
Thanks for your interest in republishing a story from Reveal. As a nonprofit newsroom, we want to share our work with as many people as possible. You are free to embed our audio and video content and republish any written story for free under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 license and will indemnify our content as long as you strictly follow these guidelines:
-
Do not change the story. Do not edit our material, except only to reflect changes in time and location. (For example, “yesterday” can be changed to “last week,” and “Portland, Ore.” to “Portland” or “here.”)
-
Please credit us early in the coverage. Our reporter(s) must be bylined. We prefer the following format: By Will Evans, Reveal.
-
If republishing our stories, please also include this language at the end of the story: “This story was produced by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, a nonprofit news organization. Learn more at revealnews.org and subscribe to the Reveal podcast, produced with PRX, at revealnews.org/podcast.”
-
Include all links from the story, and please link to us at https://www.revealnews.org.
PHOTOS
-
You can republish Reveal photos only if you run them in or alongside the stories with which they originally appeared and do not change them.
-
If you want to run a photo apart from that story, please request specific permission to license by contacting Digital Engagement Producer Sarah Mirk, smirk@revealnews.org. Reveal often uses photos we purchase from Getty and The Associated Press; those are not available for republication.
DATA
-
If you want to republish Reveal graphics or data, please contact Data Editor Soo Oh, soh@revealnews.org.
IN GENERAL
-
We do not compensate anyone who republishes our work. You also cannot sell our material separately or syndicate it.
-
You can’t republish our material wholesale, or automatically; you need to select stories to be republished individually. To inquire about syndication or licensing opportunities, please contact Sarah Mirk, smirk@revealnews.org.
-
If you plan to republish our content, you must notify us republish@revealnews.org or email Sarah Mirk, smirk@revealnews.org.
-
If we send you a request to remove our content from your website, you must agree to do so immediately.
-
Please note, we will not provide indemnification if you are located or publishing outside the United States, but you may contact us to obtain a license and indemnification on a case-by-case basis.
If you have any other questions, please contact us at republish@revealnews.org.