Two Times Journalists Receive Polk Award

Two Times journalists have received a George Polk Award for chronicling a Honduran boy’s dangerous journey to the United States in search of his mother.

Reporter Sonia Nazario and photographer Don Bartletti were winners in the international reporting category for “Enrique’s Journey,” a six-part series published from Sept. 29 to Oct. 7, 2002.

The Polk competition was established in 1949 to honor a CBS correspondent slain covering a civil war in Greece. Winners of the 2002 awards were to be announced today by Long Island University, which administers the contest. The latest Polk award is the 13th won by The Times.

The subject of The Times’ series was one of an estimated 48,000 children who enter the United States from Central America and Mexico each year without either of their parents.

Like many of these illegal immigrants, Enrique set out in hopes of finding his mother, who had left Honduras when he was 5 to find work in the U.S.

Nazario and Bartletti retraced the boy’s ordeal, describing how he rode the tops of freight trains, was beaten and robbed by thieves, sneaked around border posts and foraged for food and water before finally crossing the Rio Grande to Texas on an inner tube. He was eventually reunited with his mother in North Carolina.

Among other winners of the 2002 Polk awards was the New York Times, which was recognized for stories about the plight of mentally ill adults in poorly supervised facilities and for a series showing how two companies cornered the market on the sale of drugs, medical devices and other supplies to hospitals.

The Boston Globe was honored for reporting on the sexual-abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church and for Middle East coverage. Associated Press won for stories that questioned the manslaughter convictions of three mentally retarded defendants in Alabama.

The other winners in newspaper categories were the Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel, for a series on risks to Florida’s drinking water; the Wall Street Journal, for stories on employer abuse of benefit plans; the Burlington Free Press of Vermont, for coverage of medical malpractice; and the Courier-Journal of Louisville, Ky., for stories revealing mismanagement of a county court system.