NPR reporter Lee Gaines \u201911 recognized with prestigious journalism award | ClarkU News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/2020\/06\/09\/npr-reporter-lee-gaines-11-recognized-with-prestigious-journalism-award\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"NPR reporter Lee Gaines \u201911 recognized with prestigious journalism award\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Clark alumna wins Regional Edward R. 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{"id":14209,"date":"2020-06-09T20:25:34","date_gmt":"2020-06-09T20:25:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.golive.clarku.edu\/news\/2020\/06\/09\/npr-reporter-lee-gaines-11-recognized-with-prestigious-journalism-award\/"},"modified":"2025-04-04T14:14:17","modified_gmt":"2025-04-04T18:14:17","slug":"npr-reporter-lee-gaines-11-recognized-with-prestigious-journalism-award","status":"publish","type":"story","link":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/2020\/06\/09\/npr-reporter-lee-gaines-11-recognized-with-prestigious-journalism-award\/","title":{"rendered":"NPR reporter Lee Gaines \u201911 recognized with prestigious journalism award"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n

Clark alumna wins Regional Edward R. Murrow Award for series on prison education<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n Lee Gaines behind the mic at Illinois Public Media.\n

<\/p>\n

National Public Radio reporter and Clark University alumna Lee Gaines ’11 has been recognized with a prestigious Regional Edward R. Murrow Award<\/a> for her series of reports that uncovered many of the barriers current and former Illinois prisoners face when it comes to obtaining an education.<\/p>\n

The series, “Educating the Imprisoned<\/a>,” began after Gaines — who works for NPR<\/a> member station Illinois Public Media<\/a> — received a tip that without donated books, the state’s 28 correctional facilities would have received virtually no new reading materials in 2017. She dug deeper, and through a Freedom of Information Act request learned that the Illinois Department of Corrections had spent only $276 on books for its entire educational program that year.<\/p>\n

Gaines went on to research and publish a series of stories examining the obstacles current and\/or former inmates face when it comes to obtaining an education, including severe underfunding and censorship in prison libraries. Her reporting covers the hurdles of attaining an education with a felony record and heroin addiction<\/a>; what would happen if prisoners were eligible to receive Pell Grants again<\/a>; and the value of a college-in-prison program beyond recidivism numbers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In one story that earned national attention, Gaines reported that the Danville Correctional Center had removed more than 200 books<\/a>, mostly about race, from a college-in-prison program library. Her reporting focused on why the books had been removed and followed developments as the Illinois Department of Corrections revised its publication review policy.<\/p>\n

A Newport, Rhode Island native, Gaines majored in English at Clark. “Like many states across the country, Illinois is under a lot of pressure to depopulate its prison system,” she said in a November 2019 ClarkNow story<\/a>. “We’re in this moment where criminal justice reform is a bipartisan issue. There’s a recognition on both sides of the political aisle that the way we’re doing things right now doesn’t really make sense. I think that’s one reason why this story really took off.”<\/p>\n

“Educating the Imprisoned,” which won the Regional Edward R. Murrow Award for Best News Series, will now advance to the National Murrow Award competition.<\/p>\n

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