Reports on civilians in Iraq win investigative award

T. Christian Miller, a reporter for the nonprofit newsroom ProPublica, has won the $35,000 Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting for a collaboration with the Los Angeles Times that called attention to the plight of civilian workers injured in Iraq.

The articles, which Miller began reporting as a Times staff writer, focused on workers hired by Pentagon contractors to drive fuel trucks, cook, translate and perform other support services. More than 1,700 civilian workers have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and more than 37,000 injured.

Miller detailed how an insurance system funded by American taxpayers often failed to deliver medical care, disability pay and death benefits for the workers and their families.

Times photographer Francine Orr and database editor Doug Smith worked with Miller on the project. Some of the stories were published jointly by The Times and ProPublica. Others appeared in the Washington Post and the online magazine Salon.com, and ABC News aired broadcasts based on the reporting.

Miller’s articles are available at latimes.com/con-tractors and propubli-ca.org/contractors.