DIGITAL reporting Award
ENTRY WINNERS & PHOTOGRAPHERS
Mike Hixenbaugh, Jon Schuppe and NBC News Staff
ENTRY EXPLANATION
“Dealing the Dead,” a yearlong NBC News investigation in partnership with Noticias Telemundo, documented how the corpses of hundreds of people — the poor and vulnerable, many homeless and mentally ill — were dissected by students, or chopped up and leased out across the country to researchers and medical technology companies. None of the dead had consented to this treatment of their remains, and in many cases it was done without their relatives' knowledge. This all occurred in the shadows, part of a booming and unregulated national body trade with virtually no public scrutiny prior to NBC News’ reporting. The investigation largely told this story through the University of North Texas Health Science Center, a Fort Worth medical school that received unclaimed bodies from local counties. When people’s relatives learned what happened — in several instances, from NBC News reporters — they were horrified. “It’s like a hole in your soul that can never be filled,” one man’s sister said. After NBC News and Noticias Telemundo brought these ethical failures to light, the investigation sparked immediate changes, including the suspension of the program, and helped relatives learn the fate of their missing loved ones.
