NEW YORK - A California newspaper editor who was killed while investigating a Black Muslim splinter group's financial dealings is a posthumous winner of a George Polk Award.
Chauncey W. Bailey Jr., editor of the weekly Oakland Post, was shot in August while walking to his job. Bailey had been investigating the Your Black Muslim Bakery chain. A handyman from the bakery was charged with killing Bailey, 57, and is awaiting trial.
Bailey won the annual Polk award for local journalism.
Other 2007 winners include Shai Oster of The Wall Street Journal for reporting on the landslides and other environmental damage caused by China's construction of a $22 billion dam, and Joshua Micah Marshall of the political blog Talking Points Memo for his coverage of the Bush administration's firings of federal prosecutors around the country.
The 14 awards, among the top prizes in US journalism, will be announced today by Long Island University and be presented at a luncheon April 17 in New York.
The awards were created in 1949 to honor CBS reporter George W. Polk, who was killed while covering the Greek civil war.
The Committee to Protect Journalists said Bailey's death was the first targeted killing of a journalist in the United States since 1993. Seven men, including the handyman charged with shooting Bailey, were arrested after the shooting on charges including real estate fraud and kidnapping.
