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How I Did It
Jun23
Morton Frank Award Winners Explain How They Exposed Abuses in the Sugar Industry
“The Bitter Work Behind Sugar,” a radio story and podcast by Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting, won this year’s Morton Frank Award for best international business news reporting in TV, video, radio, audio or podcast. It was distributed by PRX and a text version was published in Mother Jones. Reporters Sandy Tolan and…
Morton Frank Award Winners Explain How They Exposed Abuses in the Sugar Industry
Name: Morton Frank Award Winners Explain How They Exposed Abuses in the Sugar Industry
Date&Time: 23 June 2022 - 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time
Location: Online via Zoom
Clockwise from upper left: Sandy Tolan, Euclides Cordero Nuel and Michael Montgomery
“The Bitter Work Behind Sugar,” a radio story and podcast by Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting, won this year’s Morton Frank Award for best international business news reporting in TV, video, radio, audio or podcast. It was distributed by PRX and a text version was published in Mother Jones.
Reporters Sandy Tolan and Euclides Cordero Nuel, who worked closely with Reveal editor and producer Michael Montgomery, will discuss their project as part of the OPC’s “How I Did It” series, which offers our many freelance members the opportunity to interact with highly successful journalists and OPC Award winners.
Registrants will receive a link to join the Zoom webinar about an hour before the program.
This comprehensive investigation took listeners deep into the sugar cane harvesting camps manned by Haitian immigrants in the Dominican Republic. Piecing together information from visits to 10 work camps (batayes), more than 100 interviews and numerous documents from government agencies and lawsuits, this team traced sugar from the Dominican fields to American ports, and the supply chains of major brands such as Domino and Hershey.
Their narrative was a strong, engaging probe into Central Romana Corporation, an immense privately held sugar-producing company which is partially owned by a prominent Cuban-American family, the Fanjuls. The story helps illustrate how the Fanjuls built a global sugar empire through a secretive web of holding companies, partnerships and affiliates including the Dominican Republic’s largest employer and a top importer of sugar to the United States. The reporting, which has prompted scrutiny from Congress and the Department of Labor, documented workers enduring $4 a day wages, staggering debt, substandard housing and woeful medical care while enhancing the company’s profitability.
The moderator is Marina Walker Guevara, executive editor of The Pulitzer Center, which helped fund the project.
OPC Events
Jun09
Book Night with Stephen Baker to Discuss Crime Thriller ‘Donkey Show’
Just in time for your beach-reading list, the OPC is pleased to host Stephen Baker on June 9 to discuss his new novel, Donkey Show, a crime thriller centered on a journalist in Mexico…
Book Night with Stephen Baker to Discuss Crime Thriller ‘Donkey Show’
Name: Book Night with Stephen Baker to Discuss Crime Thriller 'Donkey Show'
Date&Time: 09 June 2022 - 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time
Location: Online via Zoom
Just in time for your beach-reading list, the OPC is pleased to host Stephen Baker on June 9 to discuss his new novel, Donkey Show, a crime thriller centered on a journalist in Mexico.
Registrants will receive a Zoom link to join about an hour before the program on June 9.
The publisher, Atmosphere Press in Austin, TX, summaries the plot this way:
“A news photographer limps back across the Mexican border. He’s bloodied, his cameras smashed. And he carries a menacing message from a notorious drug lord to one of his colleagues. ‘Tell Tom Harley he’s dead meat.’
“This death threat transforms a half-hearted reporter into an unlikely hero and kicks off a rollicking cross-border drama. Roaming from a love nest in El Paso’s shadeless barrio to a dusty carwash across the river in Juarez, Harley starts to untangle a story in which he’s a leading actor. But can he tell the truth once he finds it?
“In Donkey Show, Baker weaves a tale of deception, dueling ambitions, and international intrigue—most of it taking place within a 10-minute bike ride of the newsroom. Nearly everyone he encounters, it seems, shapes their stories to fit their dreams. But they must survive the madness for those dreams to come true.”
Baker has worked as a journalist and writer in many cities, including Paris, Mexico City, Caracas, Quito, Madrid, New York, and El Paso. His non-fiction books, including The Numerati and Final Jeopardy: Man vs. Machine and the Quest to Know Everything, explore the effects of technology on society.
Baker and colleagues from BusinessWeek won the OPC’s Morton Frank Award in 1992 for a story telegraphing Mexico’s role in North American manufacturing in the coming decade.
OPC Executive Director Patricia Kranz will moderate the discussion.
Event Coverage
Journalism Contests
The McGraw Fellowship for Business Journalism
September 30, 2021
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Do you -- or a reporter you know -- have a great idea for high-impact investigative or enterprise story that "Follows the Money," but few resources to take it on?
If so, the McGraw Fellowship for Business Journalism, an initiative of the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York, would like to hear from you. The Fellowships provide experienced journalists with the funds and editorial support needed to produce high-impact stories on critical issues related to the US economy, business or finance.
The upcoming deadline to apply is September 30, 2021 – please note that this is a change from our earlier announced fall deadline.
- Each Fellow receives a grant of up to $15,000
- Fellowships are open to both freelance and staff journalists with at least five years professional journalism experience
- Applications accepted from both reporters and editors
- Applications in any type of media — print, audio, video and digital — will be considered
Previous McGraw Fellows have explored a wide variety of topics — and you don’t need to be a business reporter to apply. Many have been generalists, or follow beats such as health care or the environment. Others have focused on issues such as economic justice or corporate accountability. Here are some examples of their work:
- Child labor in the palm oil industry linked to Girl Scout cookies Associated Press
- Pandemic, Prosecutions Aside, Bribery Persists in Chinese Hospitals 100Reporters
- Hurricane fallout creates financial ruin for Puerto Rico seniors with reverse mortgages USA Today and Centro de Periodismo Investigativo
- Several years into BP settlement spending, the bulk of Mississippi’s restoration work remains undone Mississippi Today
- Company insiders are selling stock during buybacks & making additional profits when prices jump. And it’s legal. Washington Post
- Two Nations, One Aquifer: A Series About Water at the Border Albuquerque Journal
- How the Norcross Political Machine Muscled In On Prime Real Estate in New Jersey’s Poorest City WNYC & ProPublica
- When baby is due, genetic counselors seen downplaying false alarms Boston Globe and New England Center for Investigative Reporting
- New Workers of the World: Capturing the voices of workers facing unprecedented change Bloomberg Businessweek
If you’d like to join them, you’ll find more information, an FAQ, and the application at www.mcgrawcenter.org. If you have further questions, you can contact us at mcgrawcenter@journalism.cuny.edu. Applications are accepted twice a year. Fall 2021 Fellowships are due September 30, 2021. Spring 2022 applications will be due March 31, 2022.
The McGraw Center for Business Journalism was established at the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY in 2014 by the family of the late Harold W. McGraw, Jr., former chairman and CEO of McGraw-Hill and long-time publisher of BusinessWeek magazine. The Center is dedicated to enhancing the depth and quality of business and economic news coverage through training, student scholarships and support for veteran journalists.
The Newmark Graduate School of Journalism in midtown Manhattan is the only publicly supported graduate journalism school in the Northeast. Led by Dean Sarah Bartlett, the School offers three 16 month Master’s degree programs: an M.A. in Journalism, Spanish Language Journalism, or Social Journalism.
CONTACT:
Jane Sasseen
Executive Director
McGraw Center for Business Journalism
mcgrawcenter@journalism.cuny.edu
917-748-8257