2006 Dart Award Winners Announced

The Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma has announced the winners of the 2006 Dart Awards for Excellence in Reporting on Victims of Violence.

The Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma has announced the winners of the 2006 Dart Awards for Excellence in Reporting on Victims of Violence. The first-ever Dart Awards for radio coverage were given to the BBC, for a series about survivors of the Bosnian civil war, and PRI’s The World, for a series about survivors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. This year’s newspaper award was given to the Lafayette, La., Daily Advertiser for a project about domestic violence.

Judges selected two entries to receive the first Dart Awards for radio coverage. “Return to Sarajevo”—produced by the BBC and syndicated on US stations—will receive a $7,000 prize. The winning team includes correspondent Allan Little and producers Peter Burdin and Philippa Goodrich. In the three-part series, Little and Burdin revisit Sarajevo 10 years after the Dayton Peace Agreement—and 10 years after they covered the war themselves. They revisit the scenes of some of the worst destruction, conduct new interviews with some of the people they met 10 years earlier and tell how survivors there have attempted to rebuild their lives after living through a bloody civil war.

“Hiroshima’s Survivors: The Last Generation”—by PRI’s The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston—will receive a $3,000 prize. This four-part series introduces listeners to some of the more-than-250,000 living survivors of the atomic bomb blast, including a woman who has only recently gone public with her memories, Korean immigrants whose status as outsiders has made their ordeal even more difficult, and Japanese-American Hiroshima survivors now living in California. The winning team includes reporter/producer Patrick Cox, editor Jennifer Goren, producer Atsuko Shigesawa and engineers Mike Wilkins, Tina Tobey, Ray Fallon, Robert O’Connell and Robin Moore.

Finalists for the radio award also included:

  • “Sisters in Pain,” Public Radio International and Down to Earth Productions
  • “Tsim Txom: Domestic Violence in Hmong Society,” Wisconsin Public Radio

Judges selected the Lafayette, La., Daily Advertiser to be the 13th winner of the newspaper award. The $10,000 prize was given for “The Days After,” a 16-page special section that examined the impact of domestic violence in Acadiana. The winning team includes editor Arnessa M. Garrett, photographer Claudia B. Laws, reporter Jason Brown, designer Brittain Orgeron and reporter Marsha Sills.

Judges also selected two newspaper projects for honorable mention: “What Rape?” a four-part series in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about a pattern in which women's complaints about sex crimes were being handled informally and not included in crime statistics; and “Lethal Impulse: Understanding Teen Suicide,” a four-part series in the Omaha World-Herald based on an analysis of death records and interviews with experts and the parents of 37 teens lost to suicide.

Finalists for the newspaper award also included:

  • “A Battered Community,” The Saginaw (Mich.) News
  • “Battered Justice,” Rocky Mountain News
  • “Becky’s Story,” Akron Beacon Journal
  • “Echoes of a Deadly Day,” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
  • “The Journey of Judge Joan Lefkow,” Chicago Tribune
  • “Murder by Suicide?” The Orange County Register
  • “Shamed into Silence,” Minneapolis Star-Tribune

The Dart Awards are administered by the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at the University of Washington. Funded by the Dart Foundation of Mason, Mich., the Center develops educational resources for use in journalism schools and news organizations, provides training and conducts research about the coverage of violence.

Final judges of the radio award were: Margaret Blaustein, director of training and education at the Trauma Center at JRI in Brookline, Mass., and a practicing clinical psychologist specializing in complex childhood trauma; Laura Jackson, independent radio and video producer and a Dart Center Ochberg Fellow; Yoseñio V. Lewis, a San Francisco health educator; Suzan Shown Harjo, a columnist for Indian Country Today; and Frank Ucciardo, United Nations correspondent for CBS News.

Final judges of the newspaper award were: Jimmie Briggs, journalist, author of Innocents Lost: When Child Soldiers Go to War and a Dart Ochberg Fellow; Andrew Innerarity, senior staff photographer for the Sun-Sentinel of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and a 2003 Dart Award winner; Felicia Lynch, senior associate with Bradford & Associates, a collective of consultants in health care and organizational development and a national board member of Family Violence Prevention Fund; Elana Newman, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Tulsa and president-elect of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies; and Anthony Shadid, Islamic affairs correspondent for the Washington Post.