Better Newspaper Contest

Page 30 Best News Coverage Under Deadline Pressure/Category 1 First Staff The Tribune (Seymour) Overdoses It's almost hard to believe this package was done on dead- line. It would have been an admirable collection of information for a Sunday centerpiece that took a week to do, let alone 24 hours. Second Brett Eppley & Phyllis McLaughlin The Madison Courier 'God was watching over us' Good, thorough coverage of a natural disaster. Third Staff The Tribune (Seymour) Fire Destroys 2 Buildings There were a lot of fire stories among the entries, but this one stood out because of the depth of the package. Best News Coverage with No Deadline pressure/Category 2 First Phyllis McLaughlin The Madison Courier KKK plans Chautauqua weekend rally The dedication the reporter put into these three articles to show every point of view about the KKK rally is what being a journalist, especially a community newspaper journalist, is all about. The writing was strong, unbiased and the story overall compelling. Second Staff Daily Reporter (Greenfield) Laid to Rest The imagery made this article stand out among the rest. I think the writer did a fantastic job of crafting a news story that also felt like an obituary for these unidentified remains. It was obvious the story of these bones needed to be covered all the way through to the end and it was done beautifully. Third Alexandra Pollock The Times (Noblesville) Hamilton addicted This series stood out to me because the ledes for each article were strong and I genuinely wanted to keep reading all the way through. After reading so many heroin related stories in the last few years as well in this category, this was by far the strongest, most in depth. The personal stories from members of the com- munity also made this series really powerful. Best Ongoing News Coverage/ Category 3 First Katherine Merrill & Daniel Thompson Herald Journal (Monticello) Delphi Murder Case Thorough piece that gives proper context, pulls in the reader and presents multiple elements to support the story. Second Staff The Tribune (Seymour) Caught after 18 years on the run Third Phyllis McLaughlin, Brett Eppley & Renee Bruck The Madison Courier Madison Consolidated Schools principal controversy Division 3 Katherine Merrill & Daniel Thompson Herald Journal (Monticello) Police "definitely scaled back the search operations" for two 13-year- old girls who went missing Feb. 13 in Delphi after finding two bodies less than a mile away Feb. 14. The girls – Liberty "Libby" German and Abigail "Abby" Williams – were dropped off at about 1 p.m. by a family member near the Monon High Bridge to go on a hike Feb. 13. But after they didn't show up to be picked up at their scheduled time, friends and family members checked the immediate area and then called local police. Indiana State Police Sgt. Kim Riley, Delphi Police Chief Steve Mullin and Carroll County Sheriff Tobe Leazenby sat stone-faced in front of the glare of television news cameras in a press conference about an hour after the discovery of the bodies. They would not say they were the girls. The two bodies were found at about 12:15 p.m. on the bank of Deer Creek about three-quarters of a mile from the bridge, upstream from where they were supposed to be picked up, according to Riley, ISP public information officer for the Lafayette District. Police were investigating that site as a crime scene, he said, adding that officials suspected foul play was involved in the deaths. "The family asked for us to thank all the communities and the people for assisting to attempt to locate them," he added of the missing girls. "They wanted to express their gratitude." The identifications of the bodies was not expected until after an autopsy by Carroll County Deputy Coroner J.D. Cree, who was at the scene into the evening Feb. 14. That autopsy was scheduled for the morning of Feb. 15. "It's had a terrible impact on our community," Mullin added during the press conference when a reporter asked him to speak about the case. "It's had a terrible effect on our people. It's hard to think something like this could happen in our "There was no reason to believe there was any foul play." Overdoses Staff The Tribune (Seymour) A wave of at least 17 heroin overdoses in just a few hours Tuesday night in Jackson and Jennings counties has left Seymour Police Chief Bill Abbott with one major fear. "That it will happen again," Abbott said of the overdoses that likely led to the death of a woman in Jennings County and sent four Jackson County residents to the hospital. A 52-year-old woman from the Country Squire Lakes subdivision near North Vernon died after receiving two doses of the drug antidote Narcan, Jennings County Sheriff's Department deputies said. Her identity was not immediately released. The overdose victims included as many as four Jennings County teenagers — ranging in age from 16 to 18 — who were saved with Narcan. A Seymour man and four North Vernon residents were arrested in connection with the surge of overdoses that started being reported after 5 p.m. in Jennings County. Just five hours later, Seymour police received a call about three people having seizures in an apartment on the southeast side of the city. And police are investigating an estimated 34 overdoses reported in the Cincinnati area Tuesday related to the heroin used in Jackson and Jennings counties. The Drug Enforcement Administration is helping with the investigation. A bad batch of heroin likely laced with an elephant tranquilizer is suspected in the cluster of overdoses, police said. The tranquilizer is called carfentanil and is related to fentanyl, a powerful painkiller prescribed by doctors to help patients recover from surgery. The highly addictive fentanyl mixed with heroin gives users a more intense high and is 50 times more potent than heroin. "This is dangerous. It can kill you," Seymour Assistant Police Chief Craig Hayes said. "It is killing people." Warning from police The Seymour Police Department first sent out an alert to residents through its Facebook page at about 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, posting a photo that read, "Warning! Heroin laced with fentanyl causing overdose deaths at an alarming rate. Please share this message so that others do not have to die." The fentanyl-laced heroin is so potent that authorities now are having to administer Narcan two to four times to revive an overdose victim. In the past, one dose of the antidote usually reversed the opioid overdose. Abbott said it took four doses of Narcan to get a reaction from one of the people who overdosed Tuesday night in Seymour and two doses for two others. Phyllis McLaughlin The Madison Courier City, county and state law enforcement agencies are coordinating efforts to ensure public safety on Saturday, Sept. 24, when the Confederate White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan plan to hold a rally from noon to 2 p.m. at Madison's Fireman's Park on Vaughn Drive — during the Chautauqua Festival of Art and Old Court Days celebrations. In a document submitted several weeks ago to Jefferson County Sheriff John Wallace, representatives from the Klan – Imperial Officers Larry Philmore of Fort Wayne and Robert Preston of Baltimore, MD. – requested to hold the rally on the steps of the Jefferson County Courthouse. However, since the Courthouse will be surrounded by Old Court Days vendors and patrons, city and county attorneys sought advice from an Indianapolis attorney who specializes in 1st Amendment issues to see if it was legal to ask the Klan to hold the rally at another location, Mayor Damon Welch said. The attorney advised that, because of the previously planned event, local officials had the right to offer the Klan another location for the rally, Welch said, adding that Klan officials "verbally agreed" to move the rally to Fireman's Park, which is outside of the footprint of both Old Court Days and the Chautauqua. In a telephone interview Friday, Philmore confirmed that his organization did agree to hold the rally at the park. "We did not know the festival was going on," he said, adding it wasn't the Klan's intention for the rally to coincide with Chautauqua weekend, which draws thousands of visitors to Madison each year. "That's not how we do things," he said. One reason Madison was chosen for the rally is because the KKK "has had a chapter there for years. It's been passed down from generation to generation," Philmore said. Though known for its promotion of white supremacy, Philmore said the Klan's goal that weekend will be to emphasize the growing problem of drug trafficking and drug abuse that's affecting so many people in Jefferson, Clark and other counties throughout southern Indiana. "It's getting out of hand with heroin. Black, white or brown, it doesn't matter. Everyone knows the issues and talks about it," but, in the end, nothing is done to stop it, he said. "Now that we're coming, the churches and everybody is talking about it. It's a crazy way to do it, but people listen. Everyone thinks the Klan is a black-and-white issue. It's a red, white and blue issue," he said. Regardless of the Klan's goals, "we recognize their 1st Amendment right to peaceful assembly and freedom of speech, even though we may not always agree with the message," Wallace said. KKK plans Chautauqua weekend rally Delphi Murder Case For the complete story, visit hspa.com. For the complete story, visit hspa.com. For the complete story, visit hspa.com.

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