Dragline Wins a RFK

Rock Creek, WV — The Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights announced the winners of its 43rd Annual Journalism Awards today. Independent photojournalist Laura Antrim Caskey, creator of Dragline, a photographic exposé of mountaintop removal coal mining and the grassroots campaign to end, it has been awarded the prize in Domestic Photography.

” This year’s winning journalists, in eight professional and three student categories, covered a broad array of substantial topics, including the trials of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake, the lives of Afghan women, the impact of war on soldiers, the coal industry in West Virginia, and rape at American universities…The awards were established by journalists who covered Robert Kennedy’s historic presidential campaign in 1968. They recognize journalists whose work has focused on human rights, social justice, and the power of individuals to make a difference – issues that defined the life and work of Robert F. Kennedy. Award recipients identify cases of injustice, and examine its causes, conditions, and remedies, ” reads the press release in part.

Caskey has been reporting on the human and environmental costs of mountaintop removal coal mining since May 2005. Currently she is based in Rock Creek, WV in the Coal River Valley, since moving from Brooklyn, NY in 2008.