USA TODAY's 'Ghost Factories' series wins APME award

USA TODAY's investigation of the health hazards posed by hundreds of forgotten lead factories across the country has won a top reporting award from the Associated Press Media Editors association.

The newspaper's "Ghost Factories" series – which involved more than 14-months of reporting that was presented in an extensive online interactive website – received the association's Digital Storytelling and Reporting award in the large newspaper category. The award honors journalism that effectively uses the digital medium and its ability to engage users "in compelling new ways." The entire project and follow-up stories can be seen online at ghostfactories.usatoday.com.

The USA TODAY series revealed that federal and state environmental agencies were warned more than a decade ago that soil in hundreds of neighborhoods may be contaminated with dangerous levels of lead from factories that operated in the 1930s to 1960s, but had since closed and been forgotten with the passage of time. Yet officials did little to investigate many of the sites or warn people living nearby of the dangers to their children from playing in the dirt and putting dusty hands or toys in their mouths, the investigation found. Ingesting even tiny amounts of lead can cause lost intelligence, ADHD and other health problems, studies show. Soil testing by the newspaper found dangerous levels of lead in neighborhoods around several of the sites.

USA TODAY journalists created an online interactive site that gives users detailed findings about more than 230 factory sites, including providing historical maps documenting the factories in operation and interactive maps allowing users to examine more than 1,000 soil samples performed by the newspaper in 21 neighborhoods across the country. The interactive included extensive use of videos to further enhance the text stories and graphics. Thousands of pages of government documents about the old factories -- obtained by reporters in response to more than 140 open record requests – are posted in the interactive to empower readers to go deeper about sites of greatest interest to them.

Other winners in the contest included The Seattle Times, which won the Public Service Award for its investigation of the state of Washington's practice of steering people to methadone to reduce its Medicaid costs.

USA TODAY won the debut competition of APME's "Convergence" category 10 years ago for its "Clearing the Skies" package focused on U.S. aviation on the day of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.