S-R wins ethics award for West investigation

The Spokesman-Review on Thursday was awarded the 2006 Payne Award for Ethics in Journalism for its investigation of former Spokane Mayor Jim West.

The University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication announced that the newspaper won the News Organization Award for “its deliberate reporting process” in the investigation of West, who was recalled by voters in December after revelations that he offered City Hall jobs and appointments to young men he met on a gay Web site.

The Payne judges cited the newspaper’s careful consideration of ethical issues surrounding the decision to hire a forensic computer consultant to help identify West online, and the paper’s explanations of the decision-making process to readers.

The judges cited the more than 150 stories exploring the allegations of illicit sexual behavior and abuse of power published both in The Spokesman-Review and on spokesmanreview.com during the seven months before West’s recall.

The university awarded the individual Payne award to New York Times reporter Kurt Eichenwald for his reporting on Justin Berry, a 13-year-old boy who was pulled into the child pornography trade. Eichenwald was honored for preserving the editorial integrity of his story, while helping Berry escape the porn trade, rehabilitate himself and eventually aid in the prosecution of the adult porn ring.

In both stories, the judges said they were “impressed by the number of significant ethical decisions faced in the course of reporting the stories, the transparency of the winners’ decision-making processes, and the journalists’ sensitivity to the issues surrounding the stories.”

The awards are named for Ancil Payne, a Seattle broadcasting legend, who established the awards at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication in 1999 to “honor the journalist of integrity and character who reports with insight and clarity in the face of political or economic pressures and to reward performance that inspires public trust in the media.”

Payne, who died in October 2004, was former CEO of KING Broadcasting.

“Journalism today faces significant pressures on many fronts,” said Tim Gleason, dean of the journalism school. “With this year’s nominations, it was heartening to see evidence of careful ethical decision-making in so many newsrooms. The goal of the Payne Awards is to illuminate and encourage such behavior, and the winners represent the best examples of this behavior.”