Rappler stories on Teduray tragedy, diplomatic impunity finalists in 2024 SOPA awards

MANILA, Philippines – Rappler is a finalist in two categories in the 2024 Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) Awards for Editorial Excellence.

SOPA announced this year’s finalists on Friday morning, May 3.

Rappler’s investigative story on the deadly 2022 Kusiong landslides is a regional/local finalist in the Excellence in Journalistic Innovation category.

The Kusiong Story Project featured a two-part investigative story and an 11-minute documentary that looked into the plight of the non-Moro indigenous peoples Teduray of Barangay Kusiong in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao del Norte.

Through animations based on extensive research and community and expert interviews, Rappler’s investigative team depicted crucial events and data to show what happened after the Teduray residents were forced to vacate their shoreline homes in 2020 and relocate to an area that was buried in mud after fatal landslides were triggered by Severe Tropical Storm Paeng in 2022. 

Meanwhile, Rappler’s Diplomatic Immunity and Impunity series is a regional/local finalist in the Carlos Tejada Award for Excellence in Investigative Reporting category. The award honors the life and work of Carlos Tejada, The New York Times’ deputy Asia editor who died in December 2021. It recognizes a publication “that advances the public interest on a topic of significance by exposing wrongdoing or corruption, uncovering malfeasance or, in some other way, holding the powerful to account.”

The series is a data-driven, cross-border investigation exposing how erring diplomats have been able to exploit their migrant domestic workers and have gotten away with it for decades due to a privilege called diplomatic immunity. Most of the exploited domestic workers were found to be women from developing countries. Years after escaping the abuse, justice remained elusive for the workers.

The four-part series was written by journalist Ana P. Santos, Rappler multimedia reporter Michelle Abad, and Rappler digital forensics specialist Pauline Macaraeg.

Below are the other finalists in both categories:

Excellence in Journalistic Innovation (Regional/Local)

• Environmental Reporting Collective, Beneath The Sands
• The Quint, Hellhole: The Reality of Manual Scavenging in India

Carlos Tejada Award for Excellence in Investigative Reporting (Regional/Local)

• Frontier Myanmar, Companies exploit loopholes to dump waste in Myanmar
• The Sydney Morning Herald, Kidnapped in Japan

Rappler has won several SOPA awards for its reporting on the environment and the Duterte administration’s drug war.

SOPA has also recognized the media organization’s stories on the Marawi siege, the Philippines’ incest problem, and police abuse and the plight of seafarers during the COVID-19 pandemic. – Rappler.com