News Leaders Association Announces 2021 First Amendment Award Recipients
COLUMBIA, MO; May 12, 2021 – Today, the News Leaders Association (NLA) announces the recipients of the 2021 First Amendment Award, recognizing the best journalism advancing Freedom of Information principles or overcoming significant resistance to the application of the First Amendment.
Winner - ProPublica, “The NYPD Files”
Eric Umansky, Joaquin Sapien, Topher Sanders, Derek Willis, Moiz Syed, Mollie Simon, Joshua Kaplan, Lena Groeger, Lucas Waldron
According to the judges, this project “makes clear the lengths to which the largest department in the country has gone — aided and abetted by the union and state law — to prevent the public from seeing how it fails to police itself.
Discipline recommendations set aside; evidence withheld from civilian investigations of police abuse; false arrests, sexual misconduct, even police killings. These offenses draw few, if any consequences — except for promotions.
The series shook loose reforms that begin to address the worst inclinations of this department. Bravo.
But ProPublica didn’t stop there. After mining all of the data that NYPD didn’t want it to see, these investigative journalists put it in a searchable database for anyone and everyone to peruse, ensuring that the First Amendment, indeed, is a living, breathing document.”
Finalist - USA Today, “LSU mishandled sexual misconduct claims”
In powerful stories, USA Today showed how LSU dismissed, mishandled or buried sexual abuse and dating violence allegations against students, top athletes and even the top football coach. (The coach and a former LSU president were disciplined or fired.) The newspaper won the release of Title IX reports, police files and an internal investigation. It filed three lawsuits against the university, and prevailed in each case. Along the way, the university delayed, withheld or redacted dozens of public records and denied former students full access to their own Title IX and campus police records. Judges noted that the team's “tenacious reporting and legal victories are a powerful example of the exercise of First Amendment rights to hold accountable a key public institution."
Special citation - The News & Observer (“John Neville Death Investigation”), Florida Today (“What Happened to Gregory Lloyd Edwards “) and KXAN (“Dead & Undone”)
Judges awarded a special citation to The News & Observer, Florida Today and KXAN-TV. According to judges, "in a year in which racial justice and actions by police took center stage, three news organizations stood out for their work in shining a light inside detention facilities where men had died in custody in their states. In each instance, the news outlets fought for public records, illuminated the circumstances around the deaths and brought about change."
Thank you to our generous sponsor, the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University. We look forward to celebrating all our award recipients on June 15. Register here.