Free Press receives prestigious Polk Award



Free Press Staff Report
Monday, February 24, 2003

Burlington Free Press reporters Stephen Kiernan and Cadence Mertz have won a prestigious George Polk Award for medical reporting in 2002. The award will be formally announced today by Long Island University, which administers the Polk Awards.

The Burlington Free Press is one of 14 recipients of this year's Polk awards. Others include: The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The New Republic, The New Yorker, The Los Angeles Times, The Louisville Courier Journal and The Wall Street Journal.

The award cited Kiernan for his work in exposing tragic flaws in the regulation of Vermont doctors and Mertz for her reporting on the scandal surrounding the Renaissance expansion project at Fletcher Allen Health Care.

Sidney Offit, curator of the awards, said Friday that the judges were "impressed" with the work of the Free Press. "We thought it was ingenious reporting at a level that affected the community. Their work led to positive results. ... Their stories excelled in a very competitive arena."

Kiernan's work included a four-part series published in December 2001 that showed -- through the tragic story of one patient -- how one doctor had kept his license despite repeated medical errors.

That series, and subsequent reporting of other cases involving poor physician care, helped spur new legislation that reformed how Vermont doctors are regulated. The new law also will provide Vermont medical consumers with information about their doctors' records of performance.

Much of Kiernan's work was based on records obtained by the State Public Records Act and on extensive reporting that filled in the gaps in those documents.

Mertz was cited for her extensive work on the unfolding scandal at Fletcher Allen. Her reporting included revelations on how the hospital's top administrators had misled the public and regulators. Some of her work prompted public outcry and dramatic changes at the hospital.

Her coverage ranged from deadline reports to an in-depth re-creation of how the scandal occurred.

Kiernan has been with the Free Press for 13 years and has held a variety of positions including business editor and editorial page editor. He became special projects writer in 2001. He is a graduate of Middlebury College and has master's degrees from Johns Hopkins University and the University of Iowa Writers Workshop. His initial series on doctor regulation won the 2002 Brechner Freedom of Information Award from the University of Florida.

Mertz came to the Free Press in 2000 from the Laredo Morning Times. She is a graduate of Princeton University.

The annual George Polk Award was established in 1949 to memorialize Polk, a CBS correspondent slain covering a civil war in Greece. The award has become one of the most respected awards in the journalism field.

Among the individual recipients of the award over the years: Russell Baker, Bill Moyers, Harrison Salisbury, Walter Cronkite, Seymour Hersch, Red Smith, Joseph Lelyveld, Edward R. Murrow, Roger Angell, I. F. Stone and Jimmy Breslin.