WASHINGTON, DC (May 19, 2008) – Mary F. Calvert of The Washington Times, and Mona Reeder of The Dallas Morning News, are the 2008 winners of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards for photography.
Calvert won the International Photography award for her photographic essay "Lost Daughters: Sex Selection In India," which addresses an ongoing issue in much of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East where there's a social perception that females are "worth" less than males. Calvert's essay shows the extremes that some people in those cultures go to in order to have male infants and get rid of female infants.
Reeder won the Domestic Photography award for "The Bottom Line." The essay exposed the "frayed social safety net in Texas," and society's "forgotten people." The project was the result of years of coverage by Reeder and The Dallas Morning News that started in 2005 with the examination of a report provided by a social worker that showed how poorly Texas was doing taking care of its poor citizens, illustrating the human cost of public policies. Statistics showed that Texas was dead last for the number of people without medical insurance; is home to the three poorest counties in the country; the least state for protecting the environment; but is first in capital punishment, second in the size of the income gap between rich and poor, and second for the number of people in prison.
"The Bottom Line" won first place in the Investigative Issue Picture Story category in NPPA's 2008 Best Of Photojournalism competition in March, and it was a nominated finalist in the Feature Photography category in the 2008 Pulitzer Prizes.
The Grand Prize Robert F. Kennedy honors went to Dana Priest and Anne Hull of The Washington Post for their series "The Other Walter Reed," an investigative series that exposed the poor treatment of wounded Iraq war veterans at the Army's top hospital in the nation's capital.
Honoring outstanding reporting on the lives and strife of disadvantaged people throughout the world, the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards were established in 1968 by a group of reporters who were covering Kennedy's presidential campaign up to the time Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles the night of the California presidential primary election.
Recipients of the 40th annual honors will be recognized during a ceremony May 27, 2008, at the Newseum in Washington, DC.
