First MOLLY National Journalism Award goes to Diane Suchetka

Plain Dealer reporter Diane Suchetka has won the MOLLY National Journalism Award for “Bernard’s Story.”

The four-part series detailed the journey of Bernard Hill, a high school dropout from the Mount Pleasant neighborhood who earned a high school equivalency diploma.

The MOLLY award honors the late Molly Ivins, a legendary columnist and former editor of The Texas Observer in Austin, Texas. Ivins, 62, died in 2007. She had breast cancer.

The award, which is in its first year, recognizes the best print and online journalism that focuses on civil liberties and so cial justice and in cludes a $5,000 prize.

“We’re proud of Diane for becoming the first winner of the MOLLY,” said Plain Dealer Editor Susan Goldberg. “The stories captured the spirit of a young man who refused to quit — characteristics that Molly Ivins celebrated in her columns for many years. Diane sets a high bar for the award.”

Suchetka will receive the award today in Austin at a ceremony where broadcast journalist Dan Rather will give the keynote speech.

“If I could’ve designed the journalism prize I most wanted to win, this would’ve been it,” Suchetka said. “Molly Ivins had more pluck and wit and brains and heart than anybody in this business. And she used it all to do good, to tell the truth, fight for the little guy, bring about justice. She’s my hero.”

Suchetka’s stories were published Dec. 9-12 as part of a larger series called “Can We Save Our Neighborhoods?” The Plain Dealer chronicled the history of Mount Pleasant and the urban decay that has beset it.

Bernard’s story prompted dozens of people to offer Hill help.

“They sent him food and money and bus passes,” Suchetka said Wednesday.

“They offered him jobs, wrote him letters of encouragement, offered to mentor him.

“Six months later, people were still calling, offering to help. And just last week, a woman volunteered to help pay his tuition to Tri-C.”

Finalists for the award work for newspapers and magazines across the country, including The Nation, Mother Jones, the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune and Editor & Publisher.

Go to www.cleveland.com/mountpleasant to read “Bernard’s Story.”

– By Brian Anthony Hernandez, bhernand@plaind.com, 216-999-4416

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