By Kirstin Heinle
Student Writer
Long Island-based journalists Sandra Peddie and Eden Laikin were presented with the Selden Ring Award for Investigative Journalism on April 17 at a luncheon held at USC’s Davidson Conference Center. Presented for the last 20 years by the Annenberg School of Communication, the $35,000 award recognizes investigative reporting that has led to direct results.
Peddie and Laikin were honored for their 100-plus story series for Newsday that exposed widespread corruption and systemic failures in local special government districts on Long Island.
School of Journalism director Geneva Overholser told the audience that despite much adversity, she believes the Selden Ring Award proves investigative journalism is still thriving, saying the judges deemed this year's competition to be the “richest pool that anyone has ever seen.”
Upon accepting the award, Peddie gave the audience of 75 professional print journalists and students a piece of advice about investigative reporting: “You can never stop asking questions because you never have all the answers.”
The duo then walked the group through their process for creating the winning series, saying “this was a data-based story,” and although there were some sources, much of the information came from scouring databases and surveillance work. They also said their readers helped drive the investigation.
The story began in special districts where few people care to investigate. In fact, Peddie and Laikin had no expectations the story would spread citywide and remain the featured story for nearly a year.
“It goes to show,” said Peddie, “many big stories start small.”
The highlight of the afternoon came as Peddie described an afternoon she spent doing reconnaissance work in the field — watching the offenders play a round of golf.
“We were investigating so close that we almost got hit by golf balls,” she remembered. “They never even knew we were there.”
Apparently, three of the players cheated when they thought nobody was watching. Their escapades became a side bar in the next day’s edition of Newsday.
Cheating exposure aside, Peddie and Laikin’s pieces led to big changes in legislature and policy. For example, retirees can no longer return to the same or similar job for at least one year after retiring. Additionally, pension fraud is now a felony as a direct result from their series.
Peddie said she was looking forward to investigating another story of this scale.
“It was exhilarating, exhausting and exciting," Peddie said. "You feel like you’re making a difference.”
In addition to the awards luncheon, the winners also participated in an investigative journalism symposium co-sponsored by the Investigative Reporters and Editors and the Online News Association. Students and journalists alike spent the day in workshops such as “How to make effective use of the Internet for investigations” and “The art of finding and cultivating sources using social networks."
Shaina Pan, a junior Communication student at UCLA, said the workshop was important to her because it allowed her to “be with other professionals and have the opportunity to learn the same tools they are using.”
Another UCLA Communication student, Angelica Galang, said the workshops stressed the importance of relying on more than just an Internet search to investigate a story.
“I learned to find ways to dig deeper — to not accept that Google is the end-all of human information,” she said.
The Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting was established in 1989 by the late Selden Ring, a Southern California business leader and philanthropist. He started the award to honor journalists whose investigative reporting informed the public about major problems or corruption in society and yielded concrete results.
