Herald-Tribune project is finalist for open government award

The Herald-Tribune's four-part project "One War. Two Races." was a finalist for the inaugural Lucy Morgan Award for Open Government Reporting from the First Amendment Foundation.

The series by Josh Salman, Michael Braga and Dak Le showed how laws dating back to the crack epidemic continue to prejudice black defendants, even as the drug crisis shifts out of minority neighborhoods. The project also revealed how blacks have been left behind as the conversation turns to treatment.

"We received many compelling and worthy submissions for this award," the foundation said. "The Sarasota Herald-Tribune's 'One War. Two Races.' by Josh Salman, Michael Braga and Dak Le deserves special mention for its revelation of the persistent imbalance in sentences meted out to black and white defendants for drug crimes."

The winner of the award was the Miami Herald for its project "Fight Club: Dark secrets of Florida juvenile justice," which revealed systematic chaos, cruelty and human rights violations within some of the state's juvenile justice institutions.

The Herald-Tribune series was the culmination of two years of reporting using millions of records across five government databases. That analysis first led to "Bias on the Bench," a groundbreaking series that showed how racial discrimination permeates the state’s criminal justice system.

That project spawned a proposed law requiring the state to collect and analyze data about bias in sentencing and earned recognition from 20 state and national awards, including the Florida Bar and the Florida Public Defender Association.

Interested?

To read the project "One War. Two Races." go to heraldtribune.com/drugs.