The New York Times Wins Three Polk Awards

Polk Awards were presented to New York Times reporters in multiple categories this year, including Foreign Reporting, Legal Reporting and Military Reporting.

The Legal Reporting Polk Award was given to Jessica Silver-Greenberg, Michael Corkery and Robert Gebeloff for “Beware the Fine Print,” a deep dive series into how arbitration clauses buried in tens of millions of contracts have deprived Americans of one of their most fundamental constitutional rights: a day in court.

Nicholas Kulish, Christopher Drew, Mark Mazzetti, Matthew Rosenberg, Serge F. Kovaleski, Sean D. Naylor and John Ismay were presented with the Military Reporting Polk Award for their investigation into accusations that members of the U.S. Navy SEAL Team 6 abused Afghan detainees and often operated with little accountability.

Ian Urbina received a Polk Award for Foreign Reporting for his work on “The Outlaw Ocean,” a series about crime on the high seas. Mr. Urbina chronicled a diversity of crimes at sea including illegal fishing, intentional dumping, stealing of ships, stranding of crews and murder with impunity, among others. The series spurred Congressional hearings and testimony, class-action litigation against the seafood industry, and several criminal investigations and convictions. Mr. Urbina shares his award with The Associated Press for its coverage on slavery on fishing boats.

Also, the Radio Reporting award went to Nikole Hannah-Jones for her piece “The Problem We All Live With,” which aired on This American Life. Ms. Hannah-Jones, who is now on staff at The New York Times Magazine, reported on the re-segregation of American education for ProPublica.