The Post wins inaugural Peter F. Collier Award for Ethics in Journalism
The six-part series, which published between March and December last year, was the culmination of a two-year investigation by Jessica Contrera, Jenn Abelson and John D. Harden that found at least 1,800 police officers have been charged with crimes involving child sexual abuse from 2005 to 2022. In all, The Post published almost 20 stories as part of the investigation.
No one had ever examined the scope of this type of police misconduct before. But Contrera and Abelson wanted to go beyond the numbers, to tell the stories of the children being hurt by these crimes and expose the systemic failures that have enabled predators with badges. They knew that meant talking to children about what they'd been through.
Along with photojournalist Carolyn Van Houten, Contrera and Abelson spent two years traveling to big cities and small towns where officers had preyed on children. They met with young victims of abuse and had some of the most delicate and fraught conversations a journalist can have. With the help of editor Lynda Robinson, Contrera and Abelson navigated serious ethical challenges, making sure the children of abuse never felt pressured and always felt protected.
The Collier judges praised their 'extraordinary care to protect the privacy and dignity of these young survivors and their families' and the way Contrera and Abelson ensured that they were 'prepared for their stories to be told publicly.'
'The Post's series was a model of transparency; it featured a story detailing responses it received from the law enforcement officers and agencies it named, as well as an additional piece explaining how Post journalists approached the ethical challenge of reporting on children who survived sex crimes.'
The Post's team of more than 60 journalists included FOIA director Nate Jones, who helped seek public records on abuse cases; Hayden Godfrey, a fellow with the Investigative Reporting Workshop, who helped research hundreds of cases and their outcomes in the criminal justice system; designer Tucker Harris, who gave the series its signature design and visual power; senior video journalist Alice Li, who produced searing videos of a small Texas town betrayed by a predatory police chief; copy editor Christopher Rickett, who applied his rigorous eye to every story in the series; and editors Anu Narayanswamy, Tara McCarty, Courtney Kan, Robert Miller and Christian Font.
See the full list of 2025 Collier Award winners and finalists here.
Contrera, Abelson and Robinson accepted the award at a ceremony Thursday night at the Paley Center for Media in New York. Please join us in congratulating them and the entire Abused by the Badge team.
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