• by Ray Schultz , February 20, 2024

Long Island University has named the winners of this year’s George Polk Awards.  

Of the awards, five were for coverage of the Israel-Hamas and Ukraine wars. 

The winners are:

Foreign Reporting — The New York Times for coverage of the Israel-Hamas war 

National Reporting — Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott, Alex Mierjeski, Brett Murphy and the staff of ProPublica  for uncovering s questionable gifts received by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas

Local Reporting — Jesse Coburn of Streetsblog NYC for "Ghost Tags: Inside New York City's Black Market for Temporary License Plates. 

State Reporting — Chris Osher and Julia Cardi of The Gazette of Colorado Springs for exposing a family court system that relied on the advice of unqualified and incompetent parental evaluators. 

Business Reporting — Reuters for reports on practices at companies owned by Elon Musk. 

Medical Reporting — The award is won by Anna Werner of CBS News and the KFF Health News team of Brett Kelman, Fred Schulte, Holly K. Hacker and Daniel Chang for reporting on the Food and Drug Admiinistration’s failure to properly regulate faulty medical devices. Sharing this year’s award are Michael D. Sallah, Michael Korsh and Evan Robinson-Johnson of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Debbie Cenziper of ProPublica for "With Every Breath," a series on how the FDA allowed Philips Respironics to continue marketing breathing machines that posed a health risk. 

Justice Reporting — Brian Howey, a freelance reporter, for an exposé on a tawdry police practice published by the Los Angeles Times and featured in a podcast by Reveal, The Center for Investigative Reporting.

Magazine Reporting — Luke Mogelson of The New Yorker for "Two Weeks at the Front in Ukraine." 

Photojournalism — Samar Abu Elouf and Yousef Masoud of The New York Times for chronicling Israel's bombardment and invasion of their homeland, Gaza. 

Podcast — Meribah Knight of WPLN Nashville, Ken Armstrong of ProPublica and Daniel Guillemette of Serial Productions, The New York Times, for the four-part Podcast, "The Kids of Rutherford County." 

Television Reporting — VICE News correspondent Julia Steers and producer Amel Guettatfi for "Inside Wagner," on-the-ground coverage of Russian mercenaries on the Ukraine front and in the Central African Republic.

Commentary — Masha Gessen for The New Yorker essay "In the Shadow of the Holocaust."

The 2023 Sydney Schanberg Prize–Jason Motlagh of Rolling Stone for "This Will End in Blood and Ashes," an account of the collapse of order in Haiti.