| February 21, 2004
Associated Press journalists win prestigious
Polk Awards
 
NEW YORK -- Associated Press reporters Paisley Dodds and Justin
Pritchard have won 2004 George Polk Awards for excellence
in journalism.
Dodds won the award for foreign reporting, for her coverage
of the fall of the Aristide regime in Haiti. Pritchard was
awarded the George Polk Award in Labor Reporting for his investigative
coverage of job-related deaths of Mexican workers in the United
States. Journalism awards, covering a range of media, were
given in 11 other categories as well.
Considered among the top honors in journalism, the Polk Awards
are named after the CBS correspondent killed in 1948 while
covering a civil war in Greece. This year’s winners
were announced Monday, Feb. 21, by Long Island University,
which administers the awards.
"Paisley and Justin are very special journalists -- fiercely
determined reporters, gifted writers and excellent news leaders,"
said Kathleen Carroll, executive editor of The Associated
Press. "We're proud of their award-winning work and the
terrific journalism they produce and lead every day."
Dodds’ coverage from Haiti constituted essential intrepid
reporting. Among other things, she camped out at the airport
for two nights awaiting Aristide’s departure and, as
soon as he flew off, climbed a wall to get to a runway and
report that the U.S. Marines had arrived.
In awarding her the George Polk Award for Foreign Reporting,
the judges said Dodds covered the toppling of the Aristide
government “at great personal risk” to provide
an eyewitness account that also detailed the roles played
by the United States and the Dominican Republic. “Later,
as floods devastated the country, she continued her efforts,
shedding light on the deplorable conditions the Haitian people
endured and how their poverty magnified the destruction of
this natural disaster.”
Dodds, 35 , was named AP bureau chief in London, just last
week. The past four years she has served as news editor for
the AP in San Juan, Puerto Rico. She joined AP in 1994 as
a correspondent in Johannesburg, South Africa. She has also
worked for AP in Miami, Little Rock, Boston and New York.
She is a graduate of John Carroll University in Ohio.
Pritchard’s stories, “Dying to Work,” painstakingly
documented the dangers to immigrants of working in the United
States. His report took a year of work and investigation,
and revealed how Mexicans working in America die from work-related
deaths at an alarming number.
In singling out his work, the Polk judges noted how it drew
responses from both the U.S. and Mexican governments, and
prompted a special forum on Hispanic safety and health.
Pritchard, 31, was named news editor for AP in Los Angeles
last year. He previously was based in San Francisco, where
he specialized in immigration coverage. He joined AP in 2000
after working in Southeast Asia. He also reported from Cuba,
on a Pew Fellowship. He holds a bachelor’s degree from
Brown University in Providence.
See the stories at: http://www.brooklyn.liu.edu/polk/press/2004.html
Long Island University: http://www.liu.edu
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