2024 Dart Award Finalists Announced

Dart Awards Info

Since 1994, the Dart Awards for Excellence in Coverage of Trauma have recognized exemplary journalism on the impact of violence, crime and other traumatic events on individuals, families and communities. Spotlighting the experiences of victims and survivors, Dart Award honorees make significant contributions to public understanding of trauma-related issues. The 2024 Dart Award finalists include some of the world’s best-known news organizations as well as small community outlets.

The finalists for this year's Dart Awards for Excellence in Coverage of Trauma are: 

The Boston Globe, "Nightmare in Mission Hill: The untold story of the Charles and Carol Stuart shooting";  Business Insider, "The Predators' Playground"; Guardian US, "Faced with a violent killing, a family chooses forgiveness over prison";  The Marshall Project, "The Mercy Workers";  NBC News Digital, "Lost Rites"; The New Yorker, "The Aftermath"; The New York Times, "Alone and Exploited"; NPR's Embedded, "Buffalo Extreme"The Philadelphia Inquirer, "Forever Young" ProPublica, New York Magazine, Wondery, "How Columbia Ignored Women, Undermined Prosecutors and Protected a Predator For More Than 20 Years"; Serial Productions and The New York Times "The Retrievals"; The Texas Tribune, "She was told her twin sons wouldn’t survive. Texas law made her give birth anyway."

Click below to read, watch and listen to selections from the 2024 Dart Award finalists.

The Boston Globe, "Nightmare in Mission Hill: The untold story of the Charles and Carol Stuart shooting"

The untold story of Mission Hill, the Stuart shooting, and the people who got caught up in it and never managed to get free.
 

Business Insider, "The Predators' Playground"

At Rosemead High, generations of students were harassed or groomed for sex as they tried to get an education. This piece is a complex 360-degree view of the abuse and its aftereffects, showing how a pattern of misconduct left an imprint on a community.
 

Guardian US, "Faced with a violent killing, a family chooses forgiveness over prison"  

Donald Fields Jr. faced a life sentence after he was charged with his father’s murder. Instead, his case became a pioneering instance of restorative justice​
 

The Marshall Project, "The Mercy Workers" 

For three decades, a little-known group of “mitigation specialists” has helped save death-penalty defendants by documenting their childhood traumas. This is a rare look inside one case.​
 

NBC News Digital, "Lost Rites"

After devastated family members discovered that their loved ones had been buried in a Mississippi pauper’s field without their knowing, NBC News investigated America’s failed death notification system.
 

The New Yorker, "The Aftermath"

Twenty-five years ago, Kristin Kinkel’s brother, Kip, killed their parents and opened fire at their high school. Today, she is close with Kip — and still reckoning with his crimes.
 

The New York Times, "Alone and Exploited"

This five-part series exposes the astonishing resurgence of child labor in the U.S. and reveals the profound failures that have led to this shadow workforce.
 

NPR's Embedded, "Buffalo Extreme" 

A first-person podcast following Buffalo All-Star Extreme, a Black cheer team in Buffalo, New York, in the year after a white man murdered ten Black people in a racist massacre at the Tops supermarket a few blocks from their gym.
 

The Philadelphia Inquirer, "Forever Young"  

As gun violence surged in Philadelphia last year, two dozen children under 18 were killed in shootings, which have become the No. 1 cause of death for American kids. To examine this toll, journalist Ellie Rushing set out to tell the story of these young victims and to chronicle their too-short lives.
 

ProPublica, New York Magazine, Wondery, "How Columbia Ignored Women, Undermined Prosecutors and Protected a Predator For More Than 20 Years"

For decades, patients warned Columbia about the behavior of obstetrician Robert Hadden. One even called 911 and had him arrested. Columbia let him keep working.​
 

Serial Productions and The New York Times "The Retrievals"

Dozens of women seeking to become mothers came to a fertility clinic at Yale. This is a five-part narrative series that explores the shocking events that unfolded there. 
 

The Texas Tribune, "She was told her twin sons wouldn’t survive. Texas law made her give birth anyway."

Miranda Michel, 26, couldn’t leave the state for an abortion. But she also couldn’t bear the idea of carrying a nonviable pregnancy to term.