|
06/14/2005
AP's
Pauline Arrillaga wins a Livingston Award for Young Journalists
NEW YORK -- Southwest-based National Writer Pauline Arrillaga
of The Associated Press is among the winners of the Livingston
Awards for Young Journalists. She won the $10,000 prize for
local reporting for a journalist under 35 for "Doors
to Death,” about the illegal smuggling of human beings,
and a deadly tractor-trailer run in Texas.
The winners of the Livingston Awards, the largest all-media,
general reporting prizes in the United States, were announced
at the presentation ceremony in New York today.
Arrillaga writes frequently about illegal immigrants crossing
the border, and about the brutality of smuggling rings that
exploit them. In May 2004, in her three-part investigative
serial “Doors to Death,” she took readers deep
inside the operation of a major human smuggling ring, and
chronicled an investigation that led to the longest prison
sentences ever handed down in a human smuggling case.
The story is based on meticulous reporting. Arrillaga tracked
down survivors of the trip and interviewed them extensively,
pressing for every detail. She conducted jailhouse interviews
with the two smugglers who drove the truck. She verified the
truck’s movements by reviewing records from its Global
Positioning System. She dug into the operation of the smuggling
ring, and the investigation that brought it down, by interviewing
Texas state troopers, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents
and prosecutors.
Arrillaga reviewed hundreds of pages of court testimony, depositions
and government reports. She viewed police video tape of a
crime scene and of interrogations. And she exchanged letters
with the leader of the smuggling ring and interviewed him
in prison.
Arrillaga joined the AP in 1992 in Dallas as one of 15 college
journalists chosen for the news cooperative's national internship
program. She quickly moved up through the ranks, covering
state politics in Austin, the space program and prison system
in Houston and serving as a desk supervisor in Dallas.
In 1995, Arrillaga became correspondent in Harlingen, Texas,
where she wrote about immigration, drug trafficking, the growing
influence of Hispanics along the Mexico border and other issues.
Four years later, she was named Southwest regional writer
in Phoenix. In 2002, she was promoted to national writer.
That same year, Arrillaga was awarded the Associated Press
Managing Editors' top feature writing prize for her three-part
narrative about a Phoenix police officer whose face was burned
off in a car explosion and his quest to recover. APME again
recognized her in 2004 with an honorable mention in feature
writing for a serial narrative examining the widespread smuggling
of humans into the country.
Arrillaga's work also has captured writing awards from the
Press Club of Dallas and the Texas Associated Press Managing
Editors group, which in 1996 presented her with the top AP
writing award in that state. Her winning entry told the story
of a rescue worker at the Oklahoma City bombing and his failed
attempt to save one of the many children who perished there.
Arrillaga graduated with honors from The University of North
Texas with a bachelor's degree in journalism.
contact: Jack Stokes, Corporate Communications, 212.621.1720
|
