“When No One Is Watching,” a series by Honolulu Civil Beat Investigations Editor John Hill, is the 2026 winner of the Mike Berger Award for outstanding human interest reporting, the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism announced today.
“We were astonished by what Hill uncovered, and amazed by the tenacity of his reporting,” the judges stated in their citation.
The series documented how a foster dad held up as a model by the state of Hawaiʻi physically and sexually abused boys in his care and presided over a household in which older boys preyed on younger ones. Despite many warning signs over two decades, the state sent almost 60 boys to live with John Teixeira.
On several occasions, the state failed to act on evidence that Teixeira was far from the miracle worker it portrayed. Only after the boys became adults and one of them filed suit against the state and his former foster father did the truth come out…