A pair of freelance journalists, formerly with the Salt Lake Tribune, and a weekly newspaper in rural North Carolina have been chosen winners of the 13th annual Ancil Payne Awards for Ethics in Journalism.

Matthew LaPlante and Rick Egan wrote an expose´on the ritual killing of children in Ethopia. The story was ultimately published by CNN.

The Yancey County News has been selected for establishing itself as a check on corrupt local law enforcement in Burnsville, North Carolina.

Among the judges were Scott Carney, investigative journalist and Wired contributing editor, and Alicia C. Shepard, a former National Public Radio ombudsman.

The awards are presented annually each year by the University of Oregon.

How much does NPR not want anything to do with Fox’s O’Reilly Factor? They have apparently asked NPR correspondent Juan Williams to request that Fox remove his NPR identification whenever he appears on the show. Hard to be clearer than that!

Seems that NPR is tired of dealing with the angry emails Williams generates from his Fox appearances which land on their doorstep. To wit: Williams’ remark on the Factor a few weeks back about Michelle Obama channeling “Stokely Carmichael-in-a-designer-dress thing.” Says NPR ombudman Alicia C. Shepard:

To date, I’ve received 56 angry emails. For comparison, this year so far, listeners sent 13 emails about Steve Inskeep, 8 about Mara Liasson and 6 about Cokie Roberts — other NPR personalities who I often get emails about.

All of which makes us wonder: who’s complaining about Cokie Roberts!