Star wins first place public service award in prestigious national journalism contest

For the second time in three years, The Kansas City Star has won a top public service honor in the prestigious National Headliner Awards.

The award, sponsored by the Press Club of Atlantic City, N.J., was announced Wednesday.

Throwaway Kids, a six-part series written by Laura Bauer, Judy L. Thomas and Eric Adler, won first place in public service. The category included media companies outside the Top 20 media markets.

The Star also won two other awards. Melinda Henneberger received second place for local interest columns on a variety of subjects. Shelly Yang and Tammy Ljungblad won third place for videos of 3-10 minutes for “State care of another kind.” That video was a part of the Throwaway Kids series.

For that series, The Star spent a year investigating what happens to children across the country after they age out of the foster care system. Reporters focused on their life outcomes — the end result of billions in government spending — and found that by nearly every measure states are failing in their role as parents to America’s most vulnerable children.

The judges said of the project: “Ambitious reporting on a topic that is too often overlooked. Period. From intensely personal interviews to a survey of prisons in a dozen states around the country, the Star’s staff was all-in. More foster kids go to prison than college? Wow. Reaction was strong and this series offered some hope for this intransigent problem with a solutions component.”

Reporters interviewed former foster children across the country and surveyed prison inmates in 12 states. Researchers and child welfare experts said the results, while not scientific, were unparalleled for their reach. Corrections officials in several states said the results would be helpful in their efforts to rehabilitate prisoners.

Of those inmates who completed the survey, 1 in 4 said they had been in foster care.

The project also led to proposed legislation in several states, much of it focused on education of foster children who, the project found, graduate at a rate far below other students.

Students from the University of Missouri School of Journalism, as well as data reporters in McClatchy’s Washington, D.C., bureau, assisted in compiling and analyzing the prison surveys.

The Star won the Headliner public service award two years ago for its series on government secrecy, Why so Secret, Kansas? That project also was a finalist for the Pulitzer in public service and won many other national awards.

This story was originally published April 8, 2020 at 1:16 PM.