J-School announces 2008 Taylor/Tomlin Award in Investigative Journalism

The School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of South Carolina has awarded the 2008 Taylor/Tomlin Award for Investigative Journalism to The Post and Courier of Charleston for two provocative series.

The award, presented Thursday, April 17, at the school’s annual Honors and Awards Celebration, recognized the newspaper for its series on a fire that killed nine firefighters in June 2007 and for a series on the state’s deteriorating school-bus fleet. News reporter Doug Pardue accepted the award for both series.

Reporters for the firefighter series included Pardue, Ron Menchaca, Glenn Smith, Tony Bartleme, Robert Behre and David Slade. The series detailed mistakes made by the Charleston fire department and led to the department’s overhaul of its training, procedures and equipment.

“The firefighters and their leaders did almost everything wrong and failed to follow nationally recognized firefighting guidelines that might have prevented the tragedy,” said William Hawkins, executive editor of the Post and Courier. “Our reporting probed how a simple trash fire could end up as a deadly conflagration.”

Reporters Menchaca and Mindy Hagen wrote the three-day series on the school-bus fleet in March 2007. The pair revealed that South Carolina owned and operated the oldest, least safe and most polluting school-bus fleet in the country.

“It (the series) provoked a swift and immediate outcry that ultimately led to a new South Carolina law providing for the annual purchase of about 375 new buses at a cost of nearly $30 million per year,” Hawkins said.

The Taylor/Tomlin Award for Investigative Journalism recognizes enterprising, perceptive and beneficial reporting by journalists whose work is published in a South Carolina daily or weekly newspaper or wire service. The award was created in 2005 by South Carolina businessman Joe E. Taylor Jr. and Donald R. Tomlin Jr. to honor and stimulate the work of investigative journalists. A $5,000 stipend accompanies the award.

The School of Journalism and Mass Communications administers the annual competition, and the South Carolina Press Association coordinates the judging. Previous winners are Menchaca and Smith of the Post and Courier and David Wren of the Sun News of Myrtle Beach.