Best international reporting in a print medium dealing with human rights
AWARD YEAR: 2001
AWARD NAME: The Joe and Laurie Dine Award 2001
RECIPIENT: Sumana Chatterjee, Sudarsan Raghavan, Tish Wells
AFFILIATION: Knight Ridder Washington Bureau
HONORED WORK: “A Taste of Slavery”
At a time when many newspapers avoid challenging advertisers, the Knight Ridder team confronted an entire class of potential advertisers — makers of chocolate candy — in “A Taste of Slavery.” This was a hard-news account of the institutionalization of slavery in the Ivory Coast. There, boys as young as 12 work 14 to 18 hours a day gathering cocoa beans that are sold to chocolate manufacturers around the world. Since publication, the manufacturers have allocated money to survey the extent of child slavery in the Ivory Coast and the U.S. House of Representatives has voted to require labeling of chocolate products assuring that slave labor was not employed. The team questioned 18 chocolate confectioners, ranging from Nestlé to Ben & Jerry’s, about their possible use of slave-gathered cocoa beans.
Citation for Excellence:
Richard C. Paddock
Los Angeles Times
“Uncovering Pockets of Savagery”