The Star wins first place in premier digital media contest for foster care series
For the second time in three years, The Kansas City Star has won a top public service honor in the Eppy Awards, an international competition honoring the best in digital media.
The award, sponsored by Editor and Publisher and Local Media Consortium, was announced Tuesday. More than 450 entries were received for this year’s competition.
Throwaway Kids, a six-part series written by Laura Bauer, Judy L. Thomas and Eric Adler, won in the Best Community Service category for websites with more than 1 million unique monthly visitors. BostonGlobe.com had two finalists in the category.
The series also featured videos and photos by Shelly Yang, Tammy Ljungblad, Neil Nakahodo and James Wooldridge of The Star and Reshma Kirpalani of McClatchy.
The judges said of Throwaway Kids, “A powerful and emotional story of the not-often told sad outcomes for a good number of foster children. Well told through text, audio, still photos and videos.”
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.
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 the nearly 6,000 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 series also won first place in public service in the National Headliner Awards announced in April and first place in diversity in digital features from the Society for Features Journalism.
Bauer and Thomas also led The Star’s series on secrecy in Kansas government that won the 2018 Eppy Award for community service.
