2024 News (Large Newsroom) Finalists

Sarah Karp & Nader Issa

WBEZ Chicago & Chicago Sun Times

The Leadership Crisis at Chicago Public Schools

• Dismissal time? Johnson working to oust CPS chief executive, sources say 
• Entire CPS Board to resign, adding to school district chaos
• What to know about the CPS School Board resignations and the fallout

Comments From the Judges:

“These pieces exhibited authoritative reporting, and clear and accessible writing that lucidly lays out a power struggle in a major city’s public schools. The reporters’ depth of sourcing and commanding local knowledge add valuable context to help the reader. The explainer also made the point that much of this sort of top-level drama doesn’t really affect everyday people.”

“Local politics at their cutthroat finest. And journalists keeping up with it all amid shifting alliances and dramatic developments. What lifts this story are the well explained relationships among (sometimes changing) groups of players: the mayor, the head of the Chicago School District, the Chicago Teachers Union and the school board that by the second of the three stories has resigned. Also impressive: not forgetting to include the history of what has come before with deft comparisons to what started unfolding only days before the start of the new school year.”

Hannah Natanson, Sarah Blaskey, John Woodrow Cox, Teo Armus, Laura Meckler & Shawn Boburg

The Washington Post

Apalachee: The Making of an Alleged School Shooter

• Mother of Georgia suspect is said to have called school before shooting, warning of ‘emergency’
• The making of an alleged school shooter: Missed warnings and years of neglect
• The nation’s freshmen reckon with a mass school shooting by one of their own

Comments From the Judges:

“These stories are deeply reported, astonishingly well-sourced and horrifying. The third piece, about the freshmen throughout the country who watched in agony was a great idea. Very compelling.Outstanding coverage of the shooting at a school and all the ways it could have been stopped”.

“Richly reported, empathetically written, and deeply affecting package of stories. School shootings have unfortunately grown so common that it can be difficult for their full horror and impact to retain the power to shock. This package of stories — with its exploration of the events and personal history that contributed to the shooting in Apalachee, and its examination of how shootings like these reverberate well beyond the school walls — does that.”

Aliyya Swaby & Paige Pfleger

ProPublica & WPLN News

Crackdown on Student Threats: Tennessee’s Harsh Punishment of Kids

• An 11-Year-Old Denied Making a Threat and Was Allowed to Return to School. Tennessee Police Arrested Him Anyway.
• A 10-Year-Old Pointed a Finger Gun. The Principal Kicked Him Out of His Tennessee School for a Year.
• A 13-Year-Old With Autism Got Arrested After His Backpack Sparked Fear. Only His Stuffed Bunny Was Inside.

Comments From the Judges:

“These articles are a masterclass in how to persist when official data and cooperation are scant to nonexistent. Swaby and Pfleger found incredible ways of documenting these families stories, which officialdom clearly went to pains to keep buried. Structuring the pieces topically — e.g. by arrests, expulsions and disproportionality — kept them easy to read.”

“Wonderful job. Always good to look at what legislators say a new piece of law will do and what it actually does. In this case, some pretty eye-opening and horrible examples of the misuse of power, prompting at least some attempts at amending the legislation. And have to say, full marks to the person who wrote this headline: ‘A 13-Year-Old With Autism Got Arrested After His Backpack Sparked Fear. Only His Stuffed Bunny Was Inside’.”