2022 Gold Showcase Storytelling Award: "Haitian Odyssey"

The winners of this year’s Gold Showcase Storytelling Award went to the Houston Chronicle for chronicling the story of Haitian migrants making the long and harrowing journey through Central America and to the United States.

A lot of Americans were consumed with the immediate border crisis when a huge group of Haitians arrived at the Del Rio International Bridge in September 2021. Houston Chronicle reporter Elizabeth Trovall spent the five-hour car ride to Del Rio setting up interview opportunities, and she began her reporting by interviewing Haitian migrants at the bus station when she arrived.

“They were coming from Chile, of all places, a country having known well from living there for four years,” Trovall said. She made plans to report from the Mexican side of the border the next morning. “It was a humanitarian crisis, definitely. Immediately I felt like this was a bigger story. Covering the immediate crisis wasn’t enough.”

So, she and photojournalist Marie De Jesús set off to expand their coverage to create a detailed account of the cross-continental journey of Haitian migrants and the political, economic and social pressures that pushed them to leave home.

Houston Chronicle reporter Elizabeth Trovall, of the award-winning team, spoke with the Headliners Foundation’s Mark Morrison to discuss their award-winning coverage.