The New York Times Wins 2 Polk Awards for Investigative Reporting
Long Island University has recently announced the winners of the George Polk Awards in Journalism, honoring journalists in 15 categories for their reporting in 2021. New York Times have won 2 Polk Awards and was honored for coverage that revealed a plot behind the murder of the Haitian president and for investigations on the toll of America’s air war in the Middle East. The curator of the awards, John Darton, has shared that there were over 600 submissions received, and most of them came from more sources of investigative reporting than ever before, which speaks to the changing landscape of journalism.
The New York Times was honored with two awards in the following categories: foreign reporting and military reporting.
Maria Abi-Habib, Frances Robles and the staff of The New York Times, winning the foreign reporting award, were honored for their reports that revealed a plot behind the murder of the Haitian president, Jovenel Moïse, linked to drug traffickers he was trying to expose. After the investigation being stalled by the officials and investigators, Ms. Abi-Habib conducted more than 70 interviews with different key figures to report on the president’s life in the months leading up to his assassination and uncovered corruption and self-dealing in the government.
A contributing writer, Azmat Khan, in collaboration with The Times reporters Dave Philipps and Eric Schmitt were awarded the military reporting award for investigations that uncovered the true toll of America’s air war in the Middle East and Afghanistan. Documents discovered by Ms. Khan showed a pattern of errors and civilian deaths connected to The Pentagon’s activity during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. It was reported that a drone strike mistakenly killed 10 civilians, including seven children.
