Legion recognizes top journalists
A Washington television station, a North Carolina newspaper and a five-part investigative report of a Washington-based “online news and opinion site” received The American Legion’s Fourth Estate Award during the 96th National Convention on Thursday.
The award has been presented annually by the Legion since 1958 for outstanding achievement in the field of journalism. Nominations were considered in three categories: print, broadcast and new media (Internet).
Taking the top honor in the print category was a series of three articles in The Daily News of Jacksonville, N.C., on the effects of government sequestration and its impact on the military mental health-care system. Reporter Thomas Brennan’s investigation found that the large number of government mental health-care workers furloughed was having a dramatic and harmful impact on servicemembers unable to receive adequate treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. Following his exposé and attention from a member of Congress, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel exempted mental health workers from the furlough, returned them to work and restored treatment of personnel back to full capacity across the Department of Defense.
After getting repeated complaints from customers and a tip that problems inside a company went beyond local shops, WRC-TV News launched a one-year investigation which ultimately led to a five-part television report - “Under the Hood: The AAMCO Investigation” - which captured the top spot in the broadcast category. The WRC team of Tisha Thompson, Rick Yarborough, Jeff Piper and Mike Goldrick achieved results: AAMCO, the world’s largest transmission repair chain, pulled its multimillion dollar advertising campaign, retrained more than 700 franchise owners nationwide, conducted thousands of dollars worth of overdue repairs and now faces a class-action lawsuit. The team used nearly every investigative technique to expose “what really goes on behind garage doors when they think no one is looking.”
Senior Watchdog Reporter Mark Flatten of the Washington Examiner captured the award in the Internet (new media) category for his prescient investigative series, “Making America’s Heroes Wait.” Delving into the VA claims backlog, he found that veterans were dying, left to suffer with unhealed wounds – not on the battlefield but back at home, sometimes decades later. Much of the delay was of VA’s own making. As the result of his reporting, several investigative hearings were held, and public and congressional pressure forced VA to reprioritize resources to target disability claims that had dragged out far too long.
“These outstanding works of journalism not only stand far above the norm, but each of them has also resulted in an outcome that has positively impacted the lives of people. These committed journalists have devoted long, hard hours into investigating, researching, writing and producing masterful reports that have truly made a difference for the better in our world,” National Commander Daniel M. Dellinger. said.
Previous winners of the award include "Dateline NBC," C-SPAN, United Press International, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, the Indianapolis Star, the Detroit News, Fortune magazine, ABC News and Life magazine, among others.