The “Best of CNHI” awards were announced Friday to celebrate the best of the Montgomery, Alabama-based LLC’s journalism in 22 states.
The Record-Eagle’s investigation into who is keeping the watch on Michigan’s vulnerable seniors — ”Unguarded” — involved nine months of research and interviews across the state, headed by R-E Senior Reporter Mardi Link and Report for America journalist Luca Powell. It won first place in the company’s largest division.
According to judges, the reporting “exposed case after case of financial exploitation.”
Link and Powell visited courthouses and met with sources in Antrim, Benzie, Charlevoix, Cheboygan, Emmet, Grand Traverse, Huron, Leelanau, Mason and Wexford counties as they collected jarring accounts of how a system constructed to protect vulnerable adults often allows incompetent, unqualified or unscrupulous actors to injure the people they are meant to protect.
The detailed records collected exposed a safety net riddled with long-known gaps that have been the subject of repeated failed reform efforts by state leaders, both appointed and elected, during the past 30 years.
Personal experiences recounted by those injured by the system provided unsettling glimpses into how those gaps manifest in the lives of people the system claims to serve.
“The series took probate court authorities and the legislature to task for decades of neglect,” the judges said, adding that Record-Eagle editorials “supported the news coverage by pushing for reform.”
Record-Eagle Executive Editor Rebecca Pierce said the award recognizes the importance of the Record-Eagle’s continuing commitment to serve the community.
“Senior Reporter Mardi Link, with colleague Luca Powell and the newsroom crew in its supportive role, are shining a light on a dysfunctional system and demanding accountability where there has been none. This is our role in a democracy — and we are pleased to be making a difference for the betterment in the fulfillment of that role,” Pierce said.
Record-Eagle Publisher Paul Heidbreder said he was pleased to see Link and Powell recognized for their “amazing work exposing a cavity in our probate guardianship system.”
“This system is in desperate need of attention and reform by the State and courts,” Heidbreder said. “There has never been a bigger need to protect our more vulnerable senior citizens than now and I’m proud of our team’s effort to share what’s really going on in Michigan.”
Read the Unguarded series, including continuing coverage into 2023, at record-eagle.com.
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R-E wins public service nod for guardianship reporting
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