The New York Times reporter Hannah Dreier honored with John Bartlow Martin Award from Medill

Story sheds light on migrant children working in illegal conditions, inspires political reform

EVANSTON, ILL. -- Hannah Dreier, investigative reporter at The New York Times, is the recipient of the 2024 John Bartlow Martin Award for Public Interest Magazine Journalism from Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications. She is honored for “The Kids on the Night Shift,” an investigation published in The New York Times in September 2023. 

Dreier’s reporting uncovered the stories of migrant children being seriously injured  as they work in factories at night. Her investigative story details the illegal use of migrant children who clean slaughterhouses for Perdue and Tyson in Virginia, and around the country, to make money for their families in their home countries. It also highlights the federal laws surrounding child labor in the United States.

"Dreier's chilling story of children suffering life-changing injuries working factory night shifts is a vividly crafted narrative that leaves the reader shocked and outraged, and perfectly exemplifies both the spirit of the John Bartlow Martin Award, as well as the necessity of social justice journalism,” said Patti Wolter, Medill Helen Gurley Brown Magazine professor.

"The Kids on the Night Shift" led the U.S. Department of Labor to seek a nationwide injunction based on Dreier’s initial reporting. The Biden administration immediately opened nationwide child labor investigations into both Perdue and Tyson. Her story also led to national bills to strengthen child labor laws, congressional letters, and a Senate hearing in which leaders asked Biden officials about what they were doing to protect migrant children.

“This award is so meaningful to me because it honors longform investigative storytelling, a kind of work that takes huge personal and newsroom resources to produce,” said Dreier. “This is really a recognition of the bravery of the working children who shared their experiences in this reporting. The risks they took forced major changes that will help thousands of other migrant kids.”

Dreier has spent the past two years reporting on migrant child labor abuses. Before joining The New York Times in 2022, she wrote about immigration policy, federal disaster aid and police reform at The Washington Post. She previously worked at ProPublica and was a correspondent for the Associated Press in Venezuela. Her reporting has led to nationwide policy changes and the passage of new laws.

This is Dreier’s third award from Medill. She was previously honored with the 2019 John Bartlow Martin Award for her investigation on the government’s botched crackdown on the international crime gang MS-13, for which she also won the Pulitzer Prize. Dreier was awarded the 2016 James Foley Medill Medal for Courage in Journalism for her reporting in Venezuela.

The Medill JBM committee also awarded four honorable mentions to Bloomberg Businessweek; Business Insider with Type Investigations and Retro Report; ProPublica, and Type Investigations with Quartz. Entries for the 2024 John Bartlow Martin Award spanned a wide variety of publications, and judges further highlighted  notable entries from Grist, High Country News, The Trace and Undark Magazine.

"2024's JBM awards uncovered a broad range of concerns in our country right now with a wider subject base than in any year past,” said Wolter. “Stories ranged from investigations into child labor to police cameras, to the nursing shortage, but also artificial intelligence, gun manufacturers, and the impact of climate change on prisons, just to name a few.” 

Medill will present the award to Dreier in fall of 2024.

Honorable Mentions and Semi-Finalists for the John Bartlow Martin Award

Judges honored four additional stories with honorable mentions:

Honorable Mentions:

• ProPublica for “How Police Undermined the Promise of Body-Worn Cameras” by Eric Umansky and Umar Farooq
• Bloomberg BusinessWeek for “Algorithms and AI” by Olivia Carville and Margi Murphi
• Business Insider in partnership with Type Investigations and Retro Report for “Her son said his stepdad was sexually abusive. A judge gave the stepdad custody anyway. Then she found the photographs.” by Olivia Gentile
• Type Investigations and Quartz for “Merchants of Care” by Aurora Almendral and Samanth Subramanian

About the Blue Ribbon Judges

This year’s Blue Ribbon Judges were:

• Kaitlyn Jakola, Editorial Director, Strategy and Operations, Chicago Sun-Times
• Samantha Michaels (BSJ11), Senior Reporter, Mother Jones and 2023 John Bartlow Martin Award winner
• Robert Samuels (BSJ06), National Enterprise Reporter, Washington Post
• Danielle Cadet (BSJ10, MSJ11), Media and Content Strategist

Former Medill faculty member John Bartlow Martin advanced the tenets of public interest journalism. His magazine stories about labor racketeering, poor working conditions, racism, crime and abuse of mental patients were marked by careful reporting, incisive writing and a palpable concern for victims. In many cases, these stories, published in major magazines such as Harper’s, The Saturday Evening Post, Life, Look, Collier's and The Atlantic, prompted public policy changes and inspired other journalists to make a difference with their own reporting.

In his 10 years at Medill, Martin helped students become skilled reporters and writers. Medill established the John Bartlow Martin Award for Public Interest Magazine Journalism in 1988 to encourage outstanding professional work in this crucial area. The award comes with a cash prize of $4,000.