The Star wins national award for political coverage for stories on abortion, election

The Kansas City Star has won the award for best political coverage in the prestigious National Headliner Awards, the second year in a row the news organization has taken the category’s top prize.

Reporters Katie Bernard, Jonathan Shorman and Kevin Hardy won for “Kansas Decides,” a collection of stories in the run-up to last year’s elections. The Star also won third place in the public service category for an investigation into racism within the Kansas City Police Department.

The winning entry in the political category included an in-depth report in June by Bernard on the Catholic Church’s fight against abortion rights in Kansas by funding and shaping the messaging for a campaign to pass a state constitutional amendment that would have allowed lawmakers to severely restrict or ban abortion. The story was published just two days after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and weeks before Kansas was the first state to vote on the issue when voters rejected the amendment.

Also included in The Star’s package was an investigation by Shorman in October into how then-Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt, the Republican candidate for governor, bungled several high-profile prosecutions in connection with the 2016 death of 7-year-old Caleb Schwab on a water slide at Schlitterbahn in Kansas City, Kansas. Rounding out the entry was a deep dive by Hardy and Bernard in July into how Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s administration secured no job guarantees from Panasonic in exchange for an $829 million incentive package to build a battery plant in De Soto.

“In a strong smorgasbord of political coverage, The Kansas City Star brought insight into three significant public issues,” the judges said.

“Included in the entry we learned that Kansas cut what appears to be a bad deal for economic development; the high-profile case of a legal prosecution gone awry and an excellent look at the role of churches in the abortion debate.”

Second place in the political category went to The Dallas Morning News, while third place went to the Pennsylvania-based nonprofit Spotlight PA.

The Star’s top place for political coverage comes after it won the same honor last year for stories on U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri in the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. The Star also won the category in 2018 and 2019.

“These are stories that simply would not have been told had talented reporters and editors serving Kansas City not done so,” said Star Executive Editor Greg Farmer. “Doing journalism that is essential to our local readers is our mission, and we’re grateful that the National Headliner Awards have chosen to recognize how much this work matters.”

The Star secured third place in the public service category for “Racism in the KCPD,” an investigation by reporters Glenn E. Rice, Katie Moore and Luke Nozicka that found discrimination, racist abuse and unfair discipline of Black officers in the Kansas City Police Department. The reporters brought attention to allegations of white cops using slurs and racially profiling Black members of the force.

The U.S. Department of Justice has opened an investigation into the police department’s employment practices to determine if the force engaged in racial discrimination.

The Oregonian won first place for public service for its coverage of a controversial water rights deal between Google and The Dalles, a town outside Portland. Second place went to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

The National Headliner Awards are sponsored by the Press Club of Atlantic City, N.J. Founded in 1934, the awards program is one of the oldest and largest annual contests recognizing outstanding journalism.