Dear D&C Subscribers —
Journalists typically don’t set out to win awards when they pursue their work. Rather, they follow stories where they lead.
And the more persistent the reporter, the more important the story is worth following, there are times when the journalism created does indeed become worthy of consideration in statewide or national newspaper contests.
So it was in 2023 with two supremely important stories to readers of the Democrat and Chronicle and of Gannett’s USA TODAY Network:
- The December 2022 Buffalo blizzard that left nearly 50 persons dead.
- The arrival of enormous numbers of migrants in New York state during 2023.
In the case of the storm, it was immediately evident that a loss of life that severe pointed to failures in preparation and in emergency management. So shortly after New Years Day 2023, we assigned two reporters — regional How We Live reporter Matthew Korfhage and New York State Team health reporter David Robinson — to find out just what went wrong and why.