Oregon Capital Chronicle wins three awards in multi-state northwest journalism contest
Senior reporter Alex Baumhardt smiles Monday, June 2, in front of some of her past awards. Baumhardt will soon be able to add more hardware to her office space after winning three awards in the annual five-state Northwest Excellence in Journalism contest. (Julia Shumway/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
Oregon Capital Chronicle senior reporter Alex Baumhardt swept the investigative category of the 2024 Northwest Excellence in Journalism contest.
The Capital Chronicle and Baumhardt won three total awards in the contest, which covered the best journalism of 2024 in Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, Montana and Washington. The Greater Oregon chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, which co-runs the contest with the Western Washington chapter, announced winners Tuesday.
Baumhardt took first place in investigative reporting for small newsrooms with her January 2024 report 'Timber industry tied to proposal shifting wildfire protection costs from landowners to public.' For that article, Baumhardt drew on public records and interviews to detail the extensive role timber companies played in an ultimately unsuccessful proposal from then-state Sen. Elizabeth Steiner, now Oregon's treasurer, that would have shifted costs for fighting fires from the timber industry to all Oregon property owners.
She took second place in the investigative reporting category with 'Behind schedule, over budget, state-backed rail projects costing $70 million sit idle,' also published in January 2024. In that article, she spelled out how lawmakers spent tens of millions on two rail shipping centers that were intended to reduce truck emissions
Baumhardt also placed second in the feature (hard news) category for her February 2024 article 'Oregon homeowners face soaring premiums, few property insurance options over wildfires.' She chronicled how homeowners in central, southern and eastern Oregon have seen their home insurance costs skyrocket or be canceled altogether since the 2020 Labor Day fires.
The judge for that category praised the article as 'a very solid, timely look at the cost of securing homeowners insurance in a world beset by fires, risks and ever-higher premiums. It explores a cautionary tale for people in and beyond Oregon.'
Kelcie Moseley-Morris, a national States Newsroom reproductive rights reporter whose work often appears in the Capital Chronicle, also placed second in health reporting for her series of articles on Idaho's emergency abortion care lawsuits. The judge for that category wrote that Moseley-Morris took 'a legally complex situation and explains the critical consequences for panicked pregnant patients and their doctors juggling medical and legal mandates,' bringing a national debate home to the Northwest.
The Capital Chronicle has won awards in the highly competitive multi-state contest every year since launching in October 2021. Find all of our past awards here.
The Capital Chronicle depends entirely on donations. If you appreciate this kind of award-winning work that shows how policies impact people's lives, please consider making a donation.
Note: Capital Chronicle editor Julia Shumway serves as treasurer of the Oregon SPJ board. The board trades award entries with other states, and no Oregon journalists were involved in judging this contest.
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