Society of the Silurians EXCELLENCE IN JOURNALISM AWARDS GALA The National Arts Club 15 Gramercy Park South Wednesday, May 15, 2019 Drinks: 6 P.M. • Dinner: 7:15 P.M. Published by The Society of The Silurians, Inc., an organization Meet old friends and award winners of veteran New York City journalists founded in 1924 [email protected] MAY 2019 Celebrating The Best BY JACK DEACY Melius, a onetime street hoodlum who received today’s equivalent of at least in Pompton Lakes, New Jersey. nvestigative stories were the came to own Long Island’s unofficial $413 million from his father’s real estate highlight of this year’s Silurian political clubhouse, a grand, Gatsby-era empire and that much of it came from • Newsday reporter Will Van Sant’s IExcellence in Journalism contest. estate called Oheka Castle. Along with questionable tax schemes during the “Hands to the Neck” exposé won for The New York Times, Newsday and hosting celebrity weddings and music 1990s, including outright fraud. Public Service Reporting. It took Van The Record/NorthJersey.com were the videos by Taylor Swift and others, Ohe- Sant a year to conduct deep research, big winners in the awards spon- ka became the place where high-rank- • On their way to winning the Me- collecting documents, developing sourc- sored annually by the Society of ing public officials, political leaders and dallion for Radio News Reporting, es and using old fashioned shoe leather Silurians. law enforcement brass wined and dined, WNYC Radio and ProPublica combined to get the story. It revealed scores of Newsday also won the President’s played poker, anointed and cross-en- their staffs to produce “Trump Inc.,” a non-fatal strangulation attacks in state- Choice Medallion for its extraordinay dorsed candidates and otherwise sliced year-long series of podcasts that uncov- run or state-supervised hospital and oth- investigation that exposed a complex up the public pie. ered wrongdoing and conflicts of inter- er medical facilities. Van Sant’s report- web of corrupt ties between politicans Other winning entries also featured est in the Trump business empire. ing detailed how Patricia Gunning, the and the business, law enforcement and outstanding investigative work and sev- former special prosecutor and inspector legal communities of Long Island. Over eral of them targeted the Trump business • The Associated Press Trump Busi- general at the New York State Justice four years a battalion of Newsday report- empire: ness Team dug deep into the business Center for the Protection of People with ers and researchers conducted hundreds activities of Ivanka Trump and Jared Special Needs, was stymied in her at- of interviews, pored over thousands of • The New York Times investigative Kushner. Their investigations exposed tempt to study and combat the phenom- government documents and developed team of David Barstow, Susanne Craig glaring conflicts of interest as the pair enon, which often involved employees inside sources. The result was “Pathway and Russ Buettner won the Medalllion continue to serve as White House advis- acting against vulnerable individuals un- To Power,” a 48-page, 30,000-word spe- for Investigative Reporting by telling ers without divesting their extensive fi- der state care. Van Sant’s piece spurred cial Sunday supplement published last the complex story of the legally dubious nancial holdings. For their reporting, the calls for Congressional action. March. financial history of the Trump family AP team won a Merit Award for Busi- The vehicle for the probe was Gary business. It demonstrated that Trump ness and Financial Reporting. • Kevin Armstrong won for Sports Reporting for taking a close look at • The exhaustive research work of an FBI probe into the way business- New Jersey Bus Crash Tragedy James O’Neill, Scott Fallon and photo- men and coaches schemed to funnel journalist Chris Padota of The Record/ six-frigure payments from sneaker NorthJersey.com resulted in “Toxic Se- companies to the families of star high crets: Pollution, Evasion and Fear in school basketball players. When he New Jersey,” which won the Medal- wrote it he was working in the sports lion for Environmental Reporting. department of the New York Daily The four-part series uncovered how News. When the Daily News let half DuPont downplayed the dire health of their editorial staff go during 2018, risks posed by cancer-causing ground- Armstrong was among the casualties. water contamination at their now But he bounced back and now covers closed munitions manufacturing plant Continued on Page 4 Dennis Duggan Award Winner: Rachel Rippetoe is Dedicated to Local Reporting BY ALLAN DODDS FRANK he first story by Rachel Rippe- toe, this year’s Dennis Duggan TAward winner, appeared in the “Knightly News,” her high school news- paper at Hume-Fogg Academic Magnet High School in Nashville, Tenn., home of the Blue Knights. In those days, Rippetoe was working part time at a farmer’s market so her journalism focused on agriculture and the food chain. She wanted to get out of the South and had relatives in Oregon so she enrolled at the University of Portland, A bus carrying fifth grade students from Paramus, New Jersey, where she became the editor-in-chief of hit a dump truck while allegedly making an illegal U-turn on The Beacon, the student newspaper. While still at school, Rippetoe got an Route 80. The crash killed 10-year-old Miranda Vargas and internship at the Eugene, Oregon Reg- teacher Jennifer Williamson-Kennedy while injuring 43 others. ister-Guard. It was “the most fun ever, This photo by Bob Karp for TheRecord.com was one of a series reporting in a small town,” she says. “I that won in Breaking News Photography. got into journalism there and knew I Continued on Page 6 RACHEL RIPPETOE PAGE 2 SILURIAN NEWS MAY 2019 President’s Report Greetings, Silurians! Spring is prize time for Silurians. We had the good fortune to kick it off with a bang, celebrating our Peter Kihss Award winner, WCBS News Radio’s ace street reporter Rich Lamb, just entering his 41st year on the streets of New York. He was joined at our April awards lunch by the Dennis Duggan winner, the amazing young journalist, Rachel Rippetoe, a 23-year-old student at the Craig New- mark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York. The names of both awards, of course, enshrine two of the giants of our pro- fession—Peter Kihss of The New York Times and Dennis Duggan of Newsday, each of them contributing magisterially to the craft we all love. In May, as you are reading this, we will be presenting our annual Excellence in Journalism Awards at a gala at the National Arts Club. And we have an amazing collection of Medallion and Merit winners, including for the first time in many years the President’s Medallion, which I will be bestowing on an extraor- dinary work by Newsday called “Pathway to Power,” which you will find featured elsewhere in today’s Silurian News. * * * Since I will shortly be nearing the end Block goes over a script with CBS anchor Walter Cronkite in of my first (of two) years as your pres- an undated photo. ident, I thought it might be worthwhile to engage in a little accounting. I am of the strong belief that elected officials, learned good English in school? at every level of politics, society and “No,” he told me. “That’s not media, owe that to their constituents. It the problem. Writers need to is a belief nourished by my first-hand PROFILE: remember the art of writing lies experience chronicling the abuses per- in rewriting.” Block’s early ca- petrated by dictators operating in their reer was in print news. Does he own rather than their peoples’ interests. feel TV news today is generally In a real democracy, none of us operates superficial? “Yes, it is what it in a vacuum. We are all, or should be, MERVIN is. It’s not The New York Times, accountable to all of those who put us in office. (Sound familiar? Or perhaps but it’s free.” What about the unfamiliar these days.) look of TV news anchors, es- One of my principal goals in assum- pecially at the local level? Are ing leadership of what was then the So- BLOCK they just hiring pretty faces, good ciety of the Silurians, was to broaden our at reading from the teleprompter? “I Russian writer Leo Tolstoy. He had dinner reach and influence, which by strength BY BILL DIEHL wouldn’t say that, or think that, although with Jimmy Stewart. of the present or former employment of ervin Block is watching the a pretty face is no handicap.” His list of interviews is long: Elizabeth all of us, should be not inconsiderable. TV news and grumbling . In his books, Block doesn’t come Taylor, Elvis Presley, Judy Garland. (Gar- I was especially moved (not positively) “Too many crawls,” he says. down hard on news anchors, realizing land was 45 minutes late for her interview. by the comment from a top aide to Rep. M “It gives me the creeps. Breaking news. they haven’t written everything they “Why were you late, I asked. She said she Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), in declining our invitation to speak at one of Happening now. Those headlines are read, but “I do quote some of their scripts was taking a shower. She wasn’t pleased our gatherings, referring to The Silurians usually phony. Where are the editors? verbatim, which is bad enough.” when I said, ‘How long does it take you as “your luncheon club.” Supervisors? Management?” Does he watch the Sunday shows– to take a shower?’” Well, we are not a tea party nor Longtime Silurian Block, at 93, is “Face the Nation,” “This Week,” Meet He once had breakfast with Senator (merely) a luncheon club.