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Sonoma County Independent won
the Lincoln Steffens Award

Sonoma County Independent Editor Greg Cahill and former staff reporter Paula Harris are this year's recipients of the Lincoln Steffens Award for investigative journalism for their two-part series uncovering shoddy medical services at the Sonoma County jail and other alleged inmate abuses. The $300 first-place award, which will be presented May 27 at the Sonoma County Press Club, usually is dominated by Northern California's large dailies or urban weeklies. "Investigative journalism, it takes human hours, and you've got to have a budget to poke around," says Jonah Raskin, chairman of the Sonoma State University Communications Department and director of the award. "It's difficult for smaller papers to compete." Cahill and Harris succeeded in taking an important local issue and placing it in a national context, Raskin says. During the past two years at the jail, there have been three inmate suicides and two drug-related deaths, as well as sexual harassment claims, two escapes, and an Internet porn scandal involving prison guards. County officials voted in March to extend a $3 million contract with Correctional Medical Services, despite numerous inmate complaints locally and national lawsuits charging inferior care, but pledged a full and open review next year.