NEW YORK — The Rocky Mountain News won the 34th annual Associated Press Managing Editors Freedom of Information Award for reports on concerns about the chairman of the neurosurgery department at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.
Six other newspapers were selected from among 38 entries to receive FOI Citations, APME announced Monday. The award will be presented at the APME annual conference Oct. 13-16 in Louisville, Ky.
The award is given to a journalist or a newspaper for work that advances the First Amendment, makes good use of Freedom of Information principles or statutes, or significantly widens the scope of information available to the public. Efforts eligible for nomination occurred between July 1, 2003, and May 30. It was necessary to adjust the contest and judging period this year as a result of the planned move in July of The Associated Press headquarters, which houses the APME office.
The Denver-based newspaper reported that while Dr. Issam Awad was hired from Yale University to elevate the status of the state's only medical school, the faculty and residents were divided and challenged the quality of his surgery. His opponents also claimed he was injuring people, and they instigated a peer review of his work that led to a temporary suspension of his hospital privileges.
The News managed to report the story through several FOI requests as well as numerous interviews and materials received by the newspaper.
"The Rocky Mountain News, through it's relentless reporting, was able to shed light on a behind-closed-doors controversy," said Mark Bowden, editor of The Gazette of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and an APME director. "Because a part of this award-winning story was not based on classic public records, the News was, in effect, able to extend the mantle of the spirit of FOI to information heretofore not seen in the public light."
These newspapers were finalists in the competition and will receive APME FOI Citations:
— Los Angeles Times, for stories suggesting that besides working for the American public, scientists at the National Institutes of Health have quietly found a second employer: the pharmaceutical industry.
— The Record of Hackensack, N.J., for stories looking into the issue of medical malpractice in New Jersey and suggesting the state's regulatory system often fails to weed out bad doctors.
— The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, for reporting that opened the curtains behind which the University of Georgia Foundation had been operating.
— The Sun-News of Myrtle Beach, S.C., for uncovering systematic abuses of public money and the public trust in the local public bus company. The series led to a ruling that under the state's Freedom of Information Act public documents must remain available even if they are seized by law enforcement officers in the course of a criminal investigation.
— The Sun-Journal of Lewiston, Maine, for pursuing a report that had been withheld on the apprehension of Auburn's mayor for suspicion of operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicants.
— The Daily News of Red Bluff, Calif., for aggressively going after details of a supposed agreement between the city and its retired police chief and for reporting on other lawsuits and citizens' concern with local and county government.
The contest was judged during the APME board of directors meeting in New York in mid-June. The FOI panel was chaired by Peter Kovacs, managing editor of The Times-Picayune, New Orleans. The panel also included Bill Felber, editor, The Manhattan (Kan.) Mercury and APME treasurer, and Kristin Gazlay, deputy managing editor of The Associated Press, New York. Judges abstained from discussing or considering entries from their newspapers.
APME is an organization of editors, managing editors and online editors of the more than 1,700 newspapers served by the AP in the United States and Canadian Press in Canada.