NPR'S Laura Sullivan Named 2007 Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize Winner

(November, 2007) The WBUR Group and Boston University announced that NPR national correspondent Laura Sullivan was selected as the 2007 Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize winner for a three-part series entitled “Solitary Confinement in U.S. Prisons,” which aired on NPR's All Things Considered in July, 2006.

The Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize, sponsored by Boston University and NPR- member station WBUR-FM, highlights a new generation of public radio journalists and seeks to inspire them to stretch the boundaries of the medium. Over 20 journalists under 35 years old from around the world competed for the $5,000 prize.

Sullivan was honored at WBUR's Sixth Annual Public Radio Gala, held in November at the State Room in Boston. Her report shed light on the short and long term impact – physical and psychological - of solitary confinement.

"Laura Sullivan's series was uniformly very well written, presented with piercing clarity, and offered multiple, highly relevant perspectives," said Lawrence Grossman, senior judge and the former president of NBC News and PBS. "Gaining access to these maximum-security prisons, to the prisoners, ex-prisoners and guards was quite a coup."

In addition to Grossman, the panel of distinguished journalists who served as judges for the prize included:

• Fred Bayles, Associate Professor of Journalism, Boston University
• Emily Hanford, former Senior Editor and Producer, WUNC
• Michael Marcotte, News Director, KPBS TV/FM
• Celeste Wesson, Senior Producer, Marketplace Productions

Sullivan has worked at NPR's National Desk since December of 2004. During her tenure she has covered crime and punishment issues for Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Day to Day, and other NPR programs. Before coming to NPR, Laura was the Washington correspondent for The Baltimore Sun, where she covered the Justice Department, the FBI and terrorism.

In 1996, Laura and two other Northwestern University students completed a project that freed four men, including two death-row inmates, who had been wrongfully convicted of a murder 18 years earlier on the South Side of Chicago. The case led to a review of Illinois' death row and a moratorium on capital punishment in the state. The project won a special citation from Investigative Reporters and Editors and numerous other awards.

In 2006, Sullivan also won the prestigious Gracie Award for "Outstanding News Series" for the solitary confinement series.

The three most recent recipients of the Schorr prize have been NPR foreign correspondent Lourdes Garcia-Navarro (2006) for her two-part series entitled "Migrants' Job Search Empties Mexican Community," which explored the increasingly negative impact of migration on the provincial Mexican capitol of Malinalco; NPR reporter Ari Shapiro (2005)  for his submission "The Impact of Methamphetamine Use on the Gay Community," which focused on connections between methamphetamine abuse and rates of HIV infection in the gay community; and NPR Global Economics Reporter Adam Davidson (2004), then of Marketplace , for "Spoils of War," a report exploring the considerable rise and dollar-value cost of corruption in Iraq since the start of the war. Schorr, currently a senior analyst for NPR, has had a distinguished, award-winning career in broadcast journalism, working with such pioneers as Edward R. Murrow at CBS and CNN's Ted Turner.  Schorr's integrity and professionalism provided the vision for the journalism award bearing his name.