The New England Center for Investigative Reporting
will be honored with a prestigious 2014 “Publick Occurrences” award from the New England Newspaper and Press Association, NECIR Executive Director Joe Bergantino announced Sept. 12.
The award, to be presented on October 9, is for two stories focusing on child fatalities in the state’s child welfare system. They include senior investigative reporter Jenifer McKim’s reports: “Massachusetts children under state protection die from abuse with alarming frequency” and “Explosion of drug-dependent infants reveals weakness in Mass child protect.”
The stories were published in The Boston Globe and on the NECIR website. NECIR staff writer Michael Bottari contributed to the report on drug-dependent infants.
Judges said the stories were, “A heartbreaking, critical look at the failures of the state's DCF.” They said: “These stories deftly blended hard data with compelling narratives. They explored questionable calls made by the agency and how its policies are affecting children in the state. Despite the painful personal realities described by those interviewed, the reader still walks away informed of larger questions related to the child welfare system as a whole and its management.”
The Publick Occurrences awards were created in 1990 to mark the 300th anniversary of the founding of Publick Occurences, the first newspaper published in America that was quickly suppressed by the royal governor days later.
The New England Center for Investigative Reporting is a nonprofit news center housed at Boston University and WGBH public radio/TV.