Investigative Reports for Which Clarence Jones
Won Journalism's Most Prestigious Awards
Three
duPont-Columbia Awards - Clarence is the only local reporter to ever win
three duPont-Columbia Awards -- television's equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize.
They were for:
1974-75
"Cargo of Fear" - a five-part series at WPLG-TV showing how the organized crime
figures banned from the waterfront in New York simply moved their operations to
the Port of Miami to control the Miami port. The movie "On the Waterfront"
starring Marlon Brando dramatized the mob's control of the New York docks. The
stories in Miami led to the largest federal investigation of union corruption
since the Jimmy Hoffa Teamsters probe by U.S. Attorney General Bobby Kennedy in
the early 1960s.
1977-78
"The Scandal at Ceta" - a five part series at WPLG-TV documenting how a
prominent Miami political figure created a federal job training program and then
siphoned out more than a million dollars a year. After the stories, he was
convicted of 39 counts of grand larceny.
1980-81 "The
Billion Dollar Ghetto" - a 10-part series at WPLG-TV averaging nine minutes per
night. Each story was an in-depth look at various aspects of life in Miami's
African-American community (education, crime, home and business ownership,
etc.). This series also won the Robert Kennedy Award that year.
The stories measured progress between the Miami race riots in 1968 and the Liberty City
riots of 1980 which erupted after four police officers were acquitted of beating
black motorcycle rider Arthur McDuffie to death after a high-speed chase.
The WPLG-TV series traced more than a billion dollars spent in the black
community on federal programs during that time. In every case, conditions were
worse. The series blamed the anger which caused the deadly 1980 riots on years
of political promises which failed to materialize. The Rodney King riots in Los
Angeles in 1992 were a carbon copy of the Miami riots of 1980.
Robert F. Kennedy Award (1981)
- For "The Billion Dollar Ghetto" (above). This award honors
reporting of problems of the disadvantaged. Known among the press as the "poor
people's Pulitzers."
Four Florida Emmys
1978 - "The Car Vultures" - A
two-part series showing the theft of disabled cars from an Expressway, and how
they were sold for scrap before they were even reported stolen.
1980 - "The Cocaine Cops" - A
series of stories on how cocaine smugglers had corrupted a group of homicide
detectives. The officers were convicted in a federal criminal trial and served
prison sentences.
1981 - "Assembly-Line Justice"
- A one-hour documentary on Dade County's overloaded criminal court system.
1982 - "The Bail Bondsman" - A
five-part series on the bail bond industry and legislative efforts to reform it.
Nieman Fellow, Harvard University,
1963-64 - Each year, outstanding young journalists are chosen to be Nieman
Fellows at Harvard to enrich their future reporting and expose them to national
news figures.
Society of Professional Journalists
- SDX Chi National Public Service Award
1966 - for an extended series
of Miami Herald stories on law enforcement corruption. Clarence was one
of four Herald reporters assigned to work exclusively on corruption
within the Miami-Dade County Sheriffs Department. A highly organized system
within the department controlled illegal gambling and prostitution in the
community. As the stories reached their climax, several criminals who had worked
for law enforcement were ambushed and killed by sheriff's deputies. As a result of the
Herald stories, the
sheriff and his top deputies were removed from office. A referendum abolished
the sheriff's department. Miami-Dade is the only county in Florida which has an
appointed public safety director rather than an elected sheriff.
|