N&O reporter honored for deep reporting on North Carolina criminal justice system

News & Observer reporter Virginia Bridges has been recognized for her strong reporting on the criminal justice system in the Triangle and across North Carolina.

Bridges has won a first-place Green Eyeshade Award for courts and law reporting. The annual award recognizes excellent journalism produced on multiple beats 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 covering law enforcement, one less focused on crimes and arrests and more on how the criminal justice system functions.

Bridges, who leads this effort, brings an accountability journalism approach to her reporting on many different facets of that powerful system.

“Virginia’s tenacity and integrity are hallmarks of her exceptional reporting. Her work looks after the public’s interests and exemplifies The N&O’s mantra to do journalism with impact,” said Executive Editor Bill Church.

Among the 2023 journalism the Green Eyeshade Award recognized was Bridges’ exclusive reporting on how North Carolina has put hundreds of youth in solitary confinement-like conditions, not due to their behavior but due to staffing shortages.

Also included was her investigation into the struggles families of incarcerated men faced after they paid a Durham attorney thousands of dollars but did not receive the help they were expecting.

Bridges detailed how small North Carolina city police raided a woman’s home for questionable reasons and how residents of a Durham public housing complex lost community-focused police patrols with no notice.

She also documented the tough spot police agencies are in due to a state law that forbids them from destroying guns, forcing them to stockpile tens of thousands of weapons that police don’t want to release back to the streets.

In solutions-oriented reporting, Bridges took readers to a new Wake County clinic intended to help people in North Carolina’s most populous county file civil actions in state court even if they can’t afford a lawyer.

Bridges’ position is funded by the nonprofit The Just Trust, a grant-giving initiative that supports criminal justice reform projects across the country.

The N&O maintains full editorial independence from all philanthropic organizations engaged with its newsroom.

This story was originally published August 9, 2024 at 8:00 AM.