McCullom Lake Series: Coincidence or Cluster, by Kevin Craver and Danielle Guerra, Northwest Herald.

• Author: Blumberg, Phillip
• Position: THE Monthly JOURNALISM AWARD

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In May 2006, residents of the Illinois town of McCullom Lake, population 1,074, packed into the village hall. A month before, they'd learned that three townspeople had contracted extremely rare forms of brain cancer and were suing two local chemical companies, alleging that the companies had allowed chemicals to contaminate the drinking water. These plaintiffs weren't alone: several more residents suffering from brain and nerve cancer had also come forward after learning about the lawsuit from the area's newspaper, the Northwest Herald.

At the meeting, the county health department assured residents that it had performed a study on the issue and concluded that the seemingly high number of cancer cases was "not statistically significant." While chemicals had leaked from the manufacturing plants, officials said, the plume of contaminated groundwater had not mixed with the town's water supply. As proof, the health department displayed a PowerPoint slide locating the plume clear of the town--with a chemical company's logo in the corner of the image.

For Herald reporter Kevin Craver, the Board of Health findings "didn't pass the smell test." He asked his editors if he could spend three months investigating the story, but they weren't sure the Herald, with a small staff and a circulation of 40,000, could afford to lose a veteran reporter for that long. Craver continued covering the lawsuit the best he could.

As his stories began appearing, Danielle Guerra followed them closely. A recent college graduate, she'd just joined the paper as the videographer for its new multimedia team. She pushed hard for an in-depth project: "I wanted the community to know that these were real people," she told the Monthly.

One plaintiff particularly interested Guerra: Johann and Frank Branham had spent most of their lives in McCullom Lake before moving to Arizona. Frank was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2004 and had died two...