Post and Courier Wins Sidney Award for Expose of Domestic Violence in South Carolina | Hillman Foundation

Clear It With Sidney

The best of the week’s news by Lindsay Beyerstein

Post and Courier Wins Sidney Award for Expose of Domestic Violence in South Carolina

The Post and Courier wins the September Sidney Award for “Till Death Do Us Part,” an investigative multimedia series examining South Carolina’s domestic homicide crisis. This week also marks the twentieth anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act, which was signed into law on Sep 13, 1994. The issue of domestic violence has been making national headlines this week, since Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice was suspended indefinitely from the NFL after video surfaced showing him knocking out his future wife in a hotel elevator. 

Getting back to the Post and Courier, more than 300 women have been killed by men in South Carolina in the past decade. At the time the series was published, the state had the highest rate of male-on-female murder in the country. An 8-month investigation by Doug Pardue, Glenn Smith, Jennifer Berry Hawes and Natalie Caula Hauff found sexism and guns were to blame for a death rate more than twice the national average.

Read my Backstory interview with Doug Pardue and Glenn Smith and learn about the making of this remarkable and highly influential piece of journalism. After “Till Death Do Us Part” ran, the speaker of the South Carolina House of Representatives announced a special panel to help craft new domestic violence legislation for the next session.