The Dallas Morning News has earned earned multiple honors, including three first-place wins, in the Best of the West annual journalism competition.
The News’ series “Deadly Fake: 30 days inside fentanyl’s grip on North Texas” won first place in project reporting. One of the judges described the work as “one of the most ambitious and well-executed series I’ve ever seen.” Another judge commented that it was “expansive, intentionally understandable and transformative.” For the project, The News published at least one story every day in September exploring fentanyl’s impact in North Texas, bringing readers into hospitals, courtrooms and homes shattered by grief. The core reporting team included writers Sharon Grigsby, Claire Ballor, Maggie Prosser and visual journalist Tom Fox, but the overall effort involved nearly 30 News journalists and consisted of nearly 50 stories.
Beyond the fentanyl problem, the project focused on solutions, culminating in a community event that was later streamed online with the audio broadcast simultaneously on KRLD-AM (1080). A special print edition of stories from the project was distributed free to select schools in Dallas County. The publication included a pull-out poster with instructions on how to get help and administer the overdose-reversing drug Narcan.
“While it was so incredibly important to dissect and inspect and investigate this problem, it was far more critical to offer solutions and resources to help,” The News’ Executive Editor Katrice Hardy has said about the project.
In collaboration with the San Antonio Express-News, The News also won first place for investigative reporting for the project “Bleeding Out,” led by writer Lauren Caruba, former News data journalist Ari Sen and visual journalist Smiley Pool. The six-part series was the result of a nearly two-year collaboration between The News and the Express-News to examine an urgent health crisis: the fact that many Americans bleed to death from injuries they might have survived after car crashes, shootings, falls and other accidents. As one judge noted, “In detailed reporting, vivid photographs and compelling writing, this story brings a shockingly little-known but common cause of death to light exposing a national problem with emergency response that causes so many people to bleed out in otherwise preventable deaths. It’s a stunning package.”
Rounding out the first-place wins, staff artist Michael Hogue and News designer Jeff Meddaugh won top honors for page design for an Arts & Life Sunday cover story celebrating Willie Nelson’s 90th birthday. The package included 90 illustrations of the Texas icon.
The News also won third place for breaking news reporting for its coverage of 2023′s mass shooting at the Allen Premium Outlets shopping center. “This was a comprehensive series of stories written in a chaotic situation, made problematic by the fact it happened late on [a local] election day when the all-hands-on-deck staff was already all-hands-on-deck,” one judge noted.
The News’ visual journalists earned multiple second-place wins. Shafkat Anowar won in feature photography for his image of Texas Rangers fans celebrating the team’s World Series win over the Arizona Diamondbacks. Smiley Pool won second in sports photography with his memorable image of Dallas Cowboys wide receiver CeeDee Lamb flipping over two New York Jets players after making a catch. And Tom Fox took second for news slideshow with a gallery of images for the “Deadly Fake” project.
The annual Best of the West journalism competition judges entries from newspapers, magazines and news websites in the states of Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.