Saturday, March 25, 2000

The Toledo Blade has won the first place medal for investigative reporting for medium-sized newspapers from Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc.

"Deadly Alliance," by reporter Sam Roe, was cited as "an exhaustive piece that forced into the open embarrassing information that government and industry wanted hidden." It reported on the defense industry’s use of beryllium.

The Dayton Daily News took second place for "Falling from the Sky," by Russell Carollo. It won for exposing that the greatest danger facing military fighter and helicopter pilots "is the shoddy work being done to repair those planes and helicopters."

Locally, The Cleveland Scene and writer Mike Tobin were cited for "Comrades in Crime" among local circulation weeklies.

IRE was founded in 1975 so that reporters could exchange information and ideas about topics that require intensive research and often go unreported.