"Dry Times" explores and explains Denver's water challenges through engaging text and imaginative graphics. It was selected winner for its clear and compelling presentation of a many-layered story of geography, history, land use and policy.

• Read the report at 5280.com
• 2012 Knight-Risser Prize Symposium: "Adapting to Dry Times: The Role of the Media in an Increasingly Arid West"

Special Recognition
“Nitrate Contamination Spreading in California Communities”
Julia Scott, Sasha Khoka, Christopher Beaver, California Watch

A multimedia project of California Watch by Julia Scott, a freelance reporter, Sasha Khokha, Central Valley Bureau Chief for KQED Radio and independent filmmaker Christopher Beaver. Scott's stories appeared in print and online for the San Francisco Chronicle, the Bay Area News Group, the Riverside Press Enterprise, Visalia Times Delta and Tulare Advance Register. Khokha's radio reports were broadcast on KQED Radio and Beaver's video segments appeared exclusively on www.californiawatch.org. 

Special Recognition
“Accidental Wilderness”  
David Wolman, High Country News

A first-person exploration and contemplation of an amazing re-generation around some of the U.S. government's most contaminated nuclear sites. Reporter David Wolman describes in High Country News how these buffer zones have evolved into defacto nature preserves, where wildlife and new species of plants thrive.