The Washington Monthly JOURNALISM AWARD
The Washington Monthly JOURNALISM Award FOR NOVEMBE1R9 91 IS PRESENTED TO: David Lewis and Mary Whittington CNN Special Assignment Unit When the supersecret National Program Office...
...Nominations for any newspaper, magazine, or radio or television station in the country are welcome...
...government leaders could survive a nuclear assault...
...FOR DECEMB1E9R9 1 IS PRESENTED TO: Jeff Bailey The Wall Street Journal Down-and-out Mobile, Alabama, thought it was getting one hell of a deal when it agreed to allow Waste Management, Inc...
...NW, Washington, D.C...
...20009...
...The Washington Monthly JOURNALISM Award FOR NOVEMBE1R9 91 IS PRESENTED TO: David Lewis and Mary Whittington CNN Special Assignment Unit When the supersecret National Program Office (NPO) was created in 1982, its purpose was to ensure that U.S...
...When DODers tried to blow the whistle on that hoax and other security gaffes, they faced nasty internal retaliation (which, like wasteful spending, also thrives in the dark...
...WMI) to use 620 acres on the edge of town as a trash dump in exchange for a $17,500 school air-conditioning system, a two-trailer community center, $5,000 in camp scholarships, and a rollicking Christmas party...
...But what the good folk of Mobile didn’t know, Bailey points out in his December 3 story, “Economics of Trash,” is that WMI will reap tens of millions from that dump while exposing thousands to potentially hazardous waste...
...The winner will be announced in the June issue...
...Taxpayers spend about $36 billion a year supporting so-called “black” programs like NPO that use national security to resist even basic accountability...
...But what the agency is truly committed to ensuring, CNN reported in “The Doomsday Government,” is the preservation of its $8 billion budget...
...As Oz-like equipment whirred and blinked before the legislators, the messages it was supposedly conveying were actually sent by a legman dropping quarters in a nearby phone...
...Bailey’s tale of how corporations like WMI prey on poor communities exposes an issue that will only grow in relevance (and redolence) as tightening state and federal regulations force the closing of about half of the nation’s landfills in the next few years...
...The Monthly Journalism Award is presented each month to the best newspaper, magazine, television, or radio story (or series of stones) on our political system...
...CNN’s special shed enough light on one of them to make us more than a little nervous about the rest...
...The subject can be government in its federal, state, or municipal manifestation...
...Take one example from the November 17 report: To keep cash flowing for a hightech communications system that didn’t actually work, NPO decided to put on a show for Congress...
...Nominations for stones published or aired in March will close April 15...
...Please send nominations to Monthly Journalism Award, 161 1 Connecticut Ave...
...Though the solutions are not simple, Bailey finds a first step in Kentucky, where a new state law allows municipalities to take a percentage of the huge profits garbage companies glean while turning beggared communities into national trash cans...
...Two copies of the article or broadcast text should accompany the nomination...
Vol. 24 • March 1992 • No. 3
