Forest collaboratives formed in the wake of the Pacific Northwest’s “Timber Wars” have become major power players operating largely out of the public eye
InvestigateWest’s series on Idaho youth treatment homes has won the Best Investigative Journalism Award from the Institute of Nonprofit News.
It’s the second national award recognizing news and investigations editor Wilson Criscione’s 2023 “Cruelest Lie” series, which exposed unchecked allegations of rape, abuse and neglect inside Idaho’s licensed youth residential facilities. The Association of Health Care Journalists previously honored the series with first place for investigative reporting in its Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism.
InvestigateWest's news and investigations editor Wilson Criscione
The reporting triggered a statewide watchdog review of Idaho’s youth treatment homes, commissioned by Idaho lawmakers. The state Legislature also passed two bills related to child welfare that included increased regulation and oversight of youth treatment homes. A North Idaho youth home spotlighted in the series, Cornerstone Cottage, shut down in January, three months after the series launched.
The announcement Wednesday of the Institute for Nonprofit News award included a note from a judge, who wrote, “Criscione has the receipts — not only the compelling, horrific narrative accounts but intensively researched data backing up survivor’s stories and, sadly, making clear that while each is unique, they’re all common to a criminally faulted system — a system changed by the cleansing light of investigative reporting.”
The project began with a deep look at Cornerstone Cottage, a program in Post Falls, Idaho, which primarily worked with girls in the foster care system. The story detailed how whistleblowers raised alarms to the state regarding abuse and neglect occurring there but were fired for it, even as Cornerstone faced little consequences from the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, which refused to suspend or revoke the program’s license.
Later reporting told the story of a girl who’d been raped by her father, placed in Idaho’s foster care system and sent to Cornerstone Cottage in 2017 — only to be raped by a staffer there. Idaho’s Department of Health and Welfare knew of the situation but kept paying Cornerstone Cottage to take foster children who had experienced sexual trauma.
That story was followed up with a broader examination of all other investigations conducted by Idaho regulators of youth treatment homes that the state had a record of. Through public documents and an analysis of police call logs, the reporting showed how the lack of oversight of Cornerstone Cottage was not uncommon: The state had found serious concerns with several other youth facilities in recent years, only to let them keep operating.
In addition to the two national awards, the reporting project also won third place for project reporting in the Best of the West awards, a contest honoring journalism in the 14-state region of the western U.S. It also took second place from the regional Society of Professional Journalists in the investigative reporting category.
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Forest collaboratives formed in the wake of the Pacific Northwest’s “Timber Wars” have become major power players operating largely out of the public eye
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