Polk Award

Winning the George Polk award last week was bittersweet vindication for investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill. His book, "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army," was ignored by most major news organizations (including this one) when it was released in February 2007.

Los Angeles Times staff writer Kenneth R. Weiss and former staffer Usha Lee McFarling have won a George Polk Award for their series "Altered Oceans," it was announced today. The five-part series, published July 30 through Aug. 3, chronicled symptoms of distress in the world's oceans, ranging from a virulent rash afflicting Australian fishermen to brainaltering poisons detected in California sea lions.

Los Angeles Times staff writer Paul Pringle has won a George Polk Award for investigative stories that "revealed potential corruption" in California's largest union local, it was announced today.

The Los Angeles Times and the New York Times each won two prestigious George Polk Awards, named for a CBS correspondent who was slain while covering a civil war in Greece in 1948. Veteran Times photographer Carolyn Cole will receive the Polk award for photojournalism for "her brutally honest portrayals of life in Iraq and Liberia," which "conveyed the stark reality of everyday life during times of war." The judges said Cole's portraits "revealed the human side of the violence in both countries."

Two Times journalists have received a George Polk Award for chronicling a Honduran boy's dangerous journey to the United States in search of his mother. Reporter Sonia Nazario and photographer Don Bartletti were winners in the international reporting category for "Enrique's Journey," a six-part series published from Sept. 29 to Oct. 7, 2002. The Polk competition was established in 1949 to honor a CBS correspondent slain covering a civil war in Greece.

Times staff writer Chuck Philips has won a George Polk journalism award for his detailed accounts of the inner workings of the music industry, and a team of Times reporters has won a Polk award for tracing funding from Asian sources to the coffers of the Democratic National Committee, some of which was in violation of federal law. "We're honored that Polk has rewarded these fine journalists," said Times Editor and Executive Vice President Shelby Coffey III.