PG report on Alcoa ending South American mining wins award

Early last year, a team from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette traveled to the South American country of Suriname to learn more about the impact that Alcoa, a company born in Pittsburgh, had on the land and people there during a century of bauxite mining and aluminum refining.

The report that followed was called “The Land Alcoa Dammed,” and this week the Society of American Business Editors and Writers honored the project with first place in its feature category, medium-sized publications. Reporters Rich Lord and Len Boselovic and photographer Stephanie Strasburg worked with online designer Zack Tanner and graphic artists James Hilston and Ed Yozwick to show Pittsburghers what Alcoa had brought to that country and what it had taken away. There had been good times in the relationship, but leaving is proving a challenge.

The Post-Gazette partnered on the project with the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting in Washington, D.C., a nonprofit journalism organization that works to support in-depth engagement with underreported global affairs.

In awarding the prize, the judges said, “The question of what happens to a company town when the company leaves is an important one; this story explores the aftermath from when an entire country is overly dependent on one business.”

In the same category, SABEW awarded honorable mentions to the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram for “Trapped by Heroin,” a look at the impact of the opioid epidemic on the lobster industry in Maine;

to The Weather Channel Digital for “United States of Climate Change,” which covered the high economic stakes connected to climate change — from energy issues in Vermont to riverfront casinos in Missouri.

SABEW granted 121 awards in the contest in which 173 news organizations submitted 986 entries.