Virg Hill Journalist of the Year

The Virg Hill Journalist of the Year award is given each year to the journalist who, in the opinion, of the judges, submits the best portfolio of work. The award is named after Virg Hill, a popular political columnist and reporter for The Phoenix Gazette who died in 1969. This year's contest had 16 entries.

Judges:  
Tom Oliphant is a Washington-based columnist for The Boston Globe and a commentator for the NewsHour on PBS. He has received a Distinguished Writing Award from the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

Robert Rosenthal spent 22 years at the Philadelphia Inquirer, where he held positions ranging from reporter to editor. Under his leadership, the Inquirer won numerous national awards and six times was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Rosenthal joined the San Francisco Chronicle last year as managing editor.

  Chip Scanlan teaches reporting, writing, coaching skills, personal essays, deadline storytelling and feature writing at the Poynter Institute. He is a former reporter for the Providence Journal, St. Petersburg Times and Knight Ridder Washington Bureau. He wrote “Reporting and Writing: Basics for the 21st Century” and edited Best Newspaper Writing compilations from 1994 to 2000.

Virg Hill Journalist of the Year

Susan Carroll

Tucson Citizen

Susan Carroll, 25, covers breaking news and criminal justice trends as a police reporter for The Arizona Republic. Her selection as Arizona’s Virg Hill Journalist of the Year is based on her work at the Tucson Citizen, where she covered the border and immigration issues for three years before moving to Phoenix. Her Virg Hill portfolio included stories about the deaths of migrants in the desert of Arizona, their willingness to risk

death for a better life and their impact on the United States’ economy.

  Judge Robert Rosenthal of the San Francisco Chronicle called Caroll’s stories “an example of journalism as its best. Carroll’s work “takes readers to people and places they have never been and, in doing so, helps explain, humanizes and gives insight while breaking stereotypes,” Rosenthal said. Judge Tom Oliphant, a columnist for The Boston Globe, said Carroll “took a major 2002 story that resonated nationally and made it hers. Her combination of original detail, depth, explanation, sensitivity and follow-up was magnificent. Her writing was a classic combination of passion and responsibility.”

  Carroll won first place for beat reporting in Arizona in 2001 from the Associated Press Managing Editors, five outstanding reporting awards from Gannett and numerous other statewide honors. She graduated from the University of Arizona in 1999 with degrees in journalism and Spanish.

First runner-up

Joseph A. Reaves

The Arizona Republic

Joseph A. Reaves, a senior reporter for The Arizona Republic since February 2002, has worked for the Chicago Tribune, United Press International and Reader’s Digest. He was a foreign correspondent with the Tribune and UPI, based in London, Vienna, Beijing, Hong Kong, Manila, Rome and Warsaw. He returned to the United States in 1992 to cover the Chicago Cubs for the Tribune, and returned to Hong Kong four seasons later as Asia staff correspondent with Reader’s Digest.

  Reaves was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize four times by the Chicago Tribune, twice for reporting from war zones (Lebanon and the Philippine Revolution) and twice for national enterprise series (the impact of illegal

immigration on the U.S. economy and the lack of progress in civil rights). He also was twice awarded the Tribune’s top reporting honor, the Edward Scott Beck Award, for outstanding international coverage and was the recipient of eight outstanding reporting awards from UPI.

  Judge Chip Scanlan, who teaches writing and reporting for the Poynter Institute, was particularly impressed with the diversity of Reaves’ work: “Whether he’s marshaling feeds from a team investigating a murder victim’s past, mining his own notes on a right to die case or taking his own poll of Phoenix’s priests, Reaves writes stories marked by indefatigable, enterprising and inventive reporting, clear thinking, creative organization and narrative skills that compel the reader’s attention.”

  A PhD candidate at Arizona State University, Reaves received a master’s degree in philosophy from the University of Hong Kong and a bachelor’s in journalism from Louisiana State University, where he was inducted in 1993 into the Manship School of Mass Communications Hall of Fame. He is the author of two books, “Warsaw to Wrigley: A Foreign Correspondents’ Tale of Coming Home from Communism to the Cubs,” which was a finalist for the Casey Award as best baseball book of 1998, and “Taking in a Game: A History of Baseball in Asia,” winner of the 2002 Jerry Molloy Book Prize given by the University of Nebraska and the Society for American Baseball Research. He currently is co-authoring a book on the globalization of baseball.

Second runner-up

Judy Nichols

The Arizona Republic

Judy Nichols, 47, is a senior reporter at The Arizona Republic, where she covers trends and Native American issues. She has served as assistant city editor, night editor, bureau chief, copy editor and worked in the online department. Her four-part series, “Indian health care: Separate, unequal,” is a finalist this year for a Harry Chapin Media Award, which honors outstanding coverage of hunger, poverty and domestic policy, She also is a 1998 recipient of a National Headliner Award for “Homes Without Hope,” a series detailing abuse, neglect and financial exploitation of elder care home residents and the lack of state regulation and inspection.

  Nichols’ coverage of Native American issues — particularly, health issues and the chronic underfunding of the Indian Health Service — made her stand out, even in an impressive field of contenders, judges said. “Judy Nichols took a continuing tragedy and breathed original life into it,” said judge Tom Oliphant, a columnist for The Boston Globe. “Her in-depth work that recognized both a health care outrage and the health problems of a vulnerable population was illuminating and compelling. Her writing put people into the stories and was at all times free of jargon.” Fellow judge Robert Rosenthal of the San Francisco Chronicle said Nichols’ stories “broke ground, revealed serious problems and humanized a group of people who have slipped into a world most Americans ignore. Her prose is clear and her storytelling powerful.” Nichols’ “passion and commitment to her work smolder through her words,” Rosenthal said. 

  Nichols holds a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Arizona, and was a John S. Knight fellow at Stanford University in 2000-2001. In 1989, she and her husband, Tom, a wire editor at The Arizona Republic, bought and ran a small newspaper in northern California for a year and a half. They have an 8-year-old son, Nate.