News & Observer reporter Virginia Bridges was recognized for her strong reporting on the criminal justice system in the Triangle and across North Carolina.
Bridges won first place in the Green Eyeshade Award for courts and legal reporting. The annual award recognizes excellent journalism produced at various rates in print, broadcast and digital newsrooms in 11 states, including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia.
Like many newsrooms, The News & Observer is taking a new approach to law enforcement that focuses less on crime and arrests and more on the workings of the criminal justice system.
Bridges, who leads this effort, brings an accountability journalism approach to her reporting on many different facets of this powerful system.
“Virginia’s tenacity and integrity are hallmarks of her exceptional reporting. Their work serves the public’s interests and exemplifies the N&O’s mantra of journalism with impact,” said Executive Editor Bill Church.
Among journalism in 2023, the Green Eyeshade Award recognized Bridges’ exclusive reporting on how North Carolina placed hundreds of young people in solitary confinement confinement-like conditionsnot because of their behavior, but because of lack of staff.
Also included was his investigation into the difficulties families of incarcerated men faced after paying thousands of dollars to a Durham lawyer, but I didn’t receive help they were waiting.
Bridges detailed how police in a small North Carolina town raided a woman’s home for questionable reasons and how residents of a Durham public housing complex lost community-focused police patrols without prior notice.
She also documented the predicament law enforcement agencies find themselves in due to a state law that prohibits them from destroying weapons, forcing them to store tens of thousands of weapons that the police do not want to return to the streets.
In solutions-oriented reporting, Bridges took readers to a new Wake County clinic aimed at helping people in North Carolina’s most populous county file civil lawsuits in state courts, even if they can’t afford a lawyer.
Bridges’ position is funded by the nonprofit The Just Trust, a grant-making initiative that supports criminal justice reform projects across the country.
The N&O maintains complete editorial independence from all philanthropic organizations involved in its writing.
