N&O, ProPublica win journalism award for reporting on racial justice in NC county
The News & Observer and ProPublica won an Online Journalism Award for social justice reporting for ”Sound of Judgment,” a long-form narrative project published in May.
News & Observer investigative reporter Carli Brosseau and visual journalist Julia Wall spent months reporting in Alamance County, which was one of the nation’s most active Black Lives Matter protest sites after George Floyd’s murder in May 2020.
Their deep storytelling “tells a lot about the context of racism in America. The journalists put you into the person’s stories and you can empathize with them,” said Niketa Patel, the ONA awards committee chair who announced the award Friday.
Brosseau conveyed the complexity and intensity of the conflict with interlocking profiles of a gang member turned Black Lives Matter activist, a powerful county sheriff and a factory worker drawn to the Confederate lost cause and white nationalist movement. She also wove in the relevance of history, including a lynching, to today.
Wall crafted a 20-minute documentary on Alamance’s past and present that captured protests, aggressive police responses and questionable arrests near a Confederate monument in Graham, the county seat. It shows one monument defender’s journey from protests at home to the grounds of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
“A particularly newsworthy, noteworthy element is essentially telling the story of a place over many decades, how generation after generation can drive these mentalities and these conflicts,” said Patel, who is director of partnerships at The 19th.
The News & Observer and ProPublica collaborated on the project through ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network, which supports accountability journalism in local newsrooms.
The Online News Association is an international digital journalism association that promotes quality digital journalism, including innovative storytelling.
Read and watch “Sound of Judgment” here.
