Orion Donovan Smith of the Spokane, Wash. Spokesman-Review has won the Feddie Award from the National Press Foundation for investigative reporting on the human cost of flaws in a Department of Veterans Affairs electronic record system.

Smith accepted the award at the NPF awards dinner Feb. 23, 2023:

NPF judges hailed the work for tackling a tough but not eye-popping topic – a panoply of egregious failures in a new record-keeping system the VA launched in 2020 – and keeping at the investigative reporting to document the harm done to veterans.

“It takes serious guts for a reporter and editor anywhere (let alone at a small newspaper) to devote dozens of stories to IT failures — and hope any meaningful journalism will come out of it,” judges said.  Smith’s stories were “not only readable, but compelling,” the judges said.

One of Smith’s stories reported that patient advocates worried that “veterans could wind up dead” as a result of the system put in place at the Spokane VA Hospital.” Critics said the flawed system, which cost taxpayers billions,  “effectively beta-tested on live patients in the Inland Northwest.”

The Feddie Reporting Award was established by the National Press Foundation in 2010 to recognize outstanding reporting about the impact of federal laws and regulations on local communities. It carries a $5,000 cash prize.

The reporting was funded in part by Report for America and by members of the Spokane community.  Smith, who is the Spokesman-Review’s lone reporter in Washington D.C., was a Paul Miller Fellow in 2021.

Smith will accept the Feddie Award at the National Press Foundation’s annual awards dinner in Washington D.C. on Feb. 23, 2023.