Miriam Carey
A series of Associated Press reports on the labor abuses in the chain that provides seafood to America’s supermarkets and restaurants, a work project that reportedly freed 2,000 slaves, captured the public service award Monday when the 2016 Pulitzer Prizes were announced.
WND’s extensive 2015 reporting on the suspicious shooting death of Miriam Carey, a young black mother, with her toddler it tow, by police in Washington, D.C., was an also-ran in the race for journalism’s biggest awards of the year.
Pulitzer Prize administrator Mike Pride confirmed that it had been a “robust” year for journalism in announcing the honors.
Pride said there were some 3,000 entries in the competition in which the Los Angeles Times won for breaking news reporting on the San Bernardino shoooting, the Tampa Bay Times and Sarasota Herald-Tribune won for investigative reporting about Florida mental hospitals, ProPublica and The Marshall Project won for explanatory reporting, the Tampa Bay Times won for local reporting, the Washington Post won for national reporting, the New York Times for international reporting and The New Yorker won for feature writing.
Other winners in the journalism division included the Boston Globe for commentary, the New Yorker for criticism, the Sun Newspapers for editorial writing, the Sacramento Bee for editorial cartooning and the New York Times and Thomson Reuters for breaking news photography. The Boston Globe won for feature photography.
The story, however, is far from over.
For example, while WND’s reporting revealed Carey was shot in the back as officers claimed they shot her in self-defense even though she broke no laws and immediate reports she had tried to enter the White House grounds, or rammed a White House gate, were not accurate, still unexplained are why police stopped Carey, why Secret Service officers violated their use of force policy, where are the missing police statements, where are the missing witness statements, where is the missing evidence, and more.
“I would like to congratulate all the winners of the 2016 Pulitzer Prizes. It would be untrue if I said I was not disappointed that WND’s courageous and intrepid work exposing the massive cover-up of police and Secret Service misconduct in the shooting death of Miriam Carey in the streets of Washington, D.C., was not even a finalist,” said Farah. “It’s past time for the work of independent new media journalists to get the recognition they deserve. Twenty years is too long.”
“I was humbled and honored that our boss, Joseph Farah, believed so strongly in this series that he would consider it worthy of nomination for journalism’s most prestigious award,” said Kant.
“There was some outstanding competition for this year’s Pulitzer Prizes and I congratulate the winner and the finalists for their stellar contributions to investigative journalism. What really matters is the story and commitment to pursuing the truth wherever there is an injustice.”
“In this case,” he continued, “what matters most to me and my colleagues at WND is the pursuit of justice for Miriam Carey and for her family. Our efforts are far from done and we will not rest until we have done everything in our power to compel the Justice Department to tell the world the truth about her killing at the hands of federal officers, and why her death was so tragic and unnecessary. The best award of all would be if no other family ever again has to go through such grief for such an appalling and deadly misuse of power.”
It was Oct. 3, 2013, when Carey was killed.
Carey, 34, apparently took a wrong turn near the White House, and a few minutes later was gunned down in several hails of bullets fired by Capitol Hill police and Secret Service agents.
First reports had characterized the situation as a possible terror attack attempt. Later, reports claimed she was mentally unbalanced or suffering from postpartum depression. Later still, they claimed she rammed a security gate and ran over a police officer, fleeing at high speed.
Kant’s initial reporting found those claims incorrect, and a long list of anomalies, and he followed with multiple Freedom of Information Act requests for surveillance video and the forensics report, the police report, evidence, and more.
The result was that he found the police report was missing key evidence. WND’s efforts to uncover the truth continue even now. Unanswered are what law Carey broke, what she did wrong and what warranted the firing of dozens of rounds by police and Secret Service agents on the crowded streets of Washington, D.C., when an unarmed woman and her baby simply made a wrong turn.
Famed civil libertarian and 2002 Pulitzer Prize finalist for commentary Nat Hentoff said the evidence is so strong that authorities recklessly killed Carey that the officers involved and their superiors must be held to account for her death for the sake of the country.
“[T]his is a classic case of police out of control and, therefore, guilty of plain murder,” he said.
Hentoff, known as “Mr. First Amendment,” worried that if stories such as this were allowed to die, it could have ominous implications for the entire nation.
He lauded Kant for staying on the story.
“The way you handled that story ought to be taught in journalism schools. There are still a few journalism schools, I suppose, taking their work seriously, but this ought to be part of the curriculum. I mean it.”
Hentoff observed, “I’ve been a reporter for over 60 years and one of the first things I learned from older reporters was, ‘Remember kid, stay on a story that’s important.’ So, I commend Garth for staying on this story because, if this story is not resolved in favor of the most fundamental constitutional rights, what kind of country are we?
“All of the evidence I’ve seen, coming from Garth Kant’s report, which seems to me very thorough and can easily be backed up, is this is a classic case of police out of control and, therefore, guilty of plain murder.”
Carey family attorney Eric Sanders, a former NYPD officer, also had high praise for Kant’s efforts, telling WND, “Garth has proven to have more character, integrity and investigative skill than any reporter I have ever encountered and, trust me, I have met many. ”
“There’s a reason WND has never before nominated any of its work for Pulitzer consideration – and it’s not that we haven’t considered much of it worthy,” said Farah, editor, founder and chief executive officer of the company. “For instance, WND was the first news agency in America to focus attention on the federalization and militarization of local police forces. We did that beginning in 1997. But our colleagues, those who consider such submissions, simply did not see it as a significant problem back then. Only recently have you seen other news agencies take the matter seriously. Quite simply and candidly, WND’s reporting on fraud, waste, abuse and corruption in government has been so far ahead of its time that nominations for such projects would never have had a chance at recognition. There are many other examples I could cite.
“But, in the case of the Miriam Carey story, WND has already been cited by other news agencies for its determined leadership in rolling back the layers of an enormous and scandalous cover-up. Media outlets with far different perspectives and orientation have paid tribute to the coverage, been inspired by it and followed up to do work of their own on the Carey case. That is one of the hallmarks of the kind of breakthrough reporting that the Pulitzers have recognized in the past.”
WND’s persistence caused other media outlets to take another look at the Carey killing.
More than a year after her death, the Washington Post published a story that acknowledged the official version of events did not add up.
Half a year later, in April 2015, Mother Jones published a similar piece, noting, “The media outlet that pursued Miriam’s story with the most zeal was WorldNetDaily (WND) … which published more than 50 pieces about her.”
Actually, by the end of 2015, WND had published more than 80 pieces about Carey.
Kant has written 36 investigative stories on the Carey case, 16 of them in 2015.
In addition to the reports were the columns by Farah on the issue.
The most important evidence in the controversy would be the analysis and findings federal investigators used when they declined to press any criminal charges against two Secret Service and two Capitol Police officers for the killing of Carey.
The Carey family attorney believes incompetence and over-zealousness contributed to the killing of Carey.
The Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department conducted the investigation. Its report was reviewed by the office of the U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., a branch of the Justice Department.
The following are the 10 stories he wrote on Carey in 2015 that were submitted to the Pulitzer Prize committee.
1) ‘MURDERED’ MOM COVER-UP IMPLODES AS REPORT RELEASED
2) POLICE REPORT: FEDERAL COPS CAUSED DEADLY CHASE
3) ATTORNEY: POLICE MACHISMO KILLED UNARMED MOM
4) DARK SIDE TO CAPITOL POLICE COVER-UP
5) DOJ: ‘NO COMMENT’ ON WHY COPS KILLED MOM
6) ‘SMOKING-GUN DOCUMENTS PROVE UNARMED MOM WRONGLY KILLED’
7) POLICE KNEW OF CHILD IN ‘MURDERED MOM’S’ CAR
8) SECRET SERVICE COVERED TODDLER IN GLASS AND BLOOD
9) EVIDENCE: FEDS FIRED WILDLY AT UNARMED MOM
10) WAS UNARMED WOMAN TRAPPED WHEN COPS SHOT HER DEAD?
from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2016/04/18/pulitzer-prize-winners-announced-ap-tops-list/
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