CNS | Philip Merrill College of Journalism

CNS Record 1990-1997

[2003 Record | 2002 Record | 2001 Record | 2000 Record | 1990-99 Record]

Audrey Thomas, Edgar Villongco, Toni Guagenti and Renee Hatcher, drew on hundreds of documents and dozens of interviews in 1990 for a four-part series that detailed how the health care industry had grown to be the most powerful lobby in Annapolis.

Original CNS staffers produced a five-part series on prison overcrowding in Maryland.

Toni Guagenti showed in 1990 how Gov. William Donald Schaefer's press operation dwarfed those of fellow governors, igniting a bizarre letter-writing exchange between the governor and some constituents that led to the state's largest newspaper to ask on its front page whether Schaefer was sane.

Cheryl Reid discovered a loophole in state law that left the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission and two other state entities unregulated by the state ethics commission. Legislation was drafted in response to Reid's articles. On May 12, 1992, 15 months after her articles appeared, Gov. William Donald Schaefer signed the bill into law. The story won the 1991 J.Y. Bryan Award for investigative reporting.

Diana Schobel discovered in 1991 that, despite the governor's hiring freeze, the administration had hired nearly 2,000 new employees.

Patching together records from scores of state agencies, Cheryl Reid documented in 1991 what many already suspected - that the upper echelon of Maryland's payrolls was the exclusive domain of white men.

June Kurtz and Cheryl Reid wrote a three-part series in 1991 on the progress -- and lack of progress -- of women in the three branches of Maryland state government.

Cheever Griffin conducted a 1991 Virginia death-row interview with convicted killer Joseph Giarratano days before his scheduled execution.

With Maryland headed to its first execution in 32 years, Kimberly Thomas used old court records and interviews in 1993 to chronicle the life and crimes of Nathaniel Lipscomb, the last person executed in Maryland's gas chamber. Her story won a professional writing award from the Maryland State Bar Association.

Leila Fiester wrote a ground-breaking 1991 story about the hidden dangers that five-gallon plastic barrels pose for toddlers. The story was distributed by Knight-Ridder News Service and ran in newspapers around the country.

Mildred Charley, in another 1991 Knight-Ridder story, looked at the first crack babies to enter the U.S. school system.

Robin Stansbury looked behind the scenes at the Maryland Court of Appeals in 1991, interviewing each judge and former judge on the state's highest court for a look at one of the most powerful -- and little understood -- institutions in Maryland government.

Visiting prisons, drug abuse shelters and college campuses in 1991, Glenn McMahan, Leila Fiester and Jill Brandt looked behind the political rhetoric for a series of stories on the effect state budget cuts were having on Marylanders from all walks of life.

Maria Douglas produced a three-part series in 1992 on Maryland's death penalty and the dozen inmates on death row.

Alan Zagier hit the road in 1992 to survey Maryland businesses and discovered that most were ignoring a new federal law requiring access for the disabled.

Elizabeth Chang revealed in 1992 that a Prince George's County Republican Central Committee member who was running for Congress was also an editor of an ultra right-wing and vehemently anti-Semitic newspaper. The candidate lost the primary.

Lisa Claggett spent a day in 1992 living with Kent and Johnell Umberger and their seven children in an Army base-turned-homeless shelter. The story led Anne Arundel community leaders to start a special fund for the family that collected more than $5,000, plus toys and clothes.

Jim Payne combed through federal campaign reports in 1993 to show that Rep. Beverly Byron broke a campaign promise and used leftover campaign funds to buy a desk and other office equipment for herself.

Mike Koster's 1993 story that an unusually high number of faculty in a University of Maryland building had illnesses and cancer led the university to step up its probe.

Howard Buck disclosed in 1993 that state Sen. Mary Boergers, D-Montgomery, was planning a 1994 gubernatorial bid.

Jacqueline Soteropoulos found in 1993 that certain federal agencies circumvented the law requiring them to provide health insurance by hiring, firing and rehiring "temporary" workers each year, letting the government to keep the same people in place for years without giving them permanent employee status.

Students from both bureaus interviewed Gov. William Donald Schaefer during an exclusive 45-minute interview in the CNS Washington bureau.