For the first time ever, a TV news report has been awarded the prestigious Heywood Broun Award, given by the Newspaper Guild.
The ABC News investigative team, along with their partners at Center for Public Integrity are being honored for their report on black lung disease. In March, ABC and CPI were awarded the 2014 Goldsmith Prize for investigative reporting for the series called Breathless and Burdened.
Previous honorees of the the Heywood Broun Award, which dates to 1941, include Woodward and Bernstein for their 1972 Washington Post reports on the Watergate scandal and the Philadelphia Inquirer for its Donald Barlett and James Steele series on the lost American Dream.
The year-long joint investigation examined how doctors and lawyers, working at the behest of the coal industry, helped defeat benefit claims of coal miners who were sick and dying of black lung disease. The ABC/CPI team explored thousands of previously classified legal filings and went undercover with miners to see first-hand how doctors hired by coal companies conducted their exams.