Maria T. Alvarez, a general assignment and beat reporter for the New York Post. Alvarez was the lead reporter on the Elian Gonzalez news story. Her recent work includes coverage of the murder trial of Kennedy family nephew Michael Skakel as well as Ground Zero on and after September 11. She is a former reporter for the Hartford Courant and Boston Globe.

David T. Cullen, a free-lance journalist. Cullen has contributed work to The New York Times, National Public Radio and the online publications Salon.com and Slate.com. He covered the school shootings in Littleton, Colorado, as well as the trials of the murderers of Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming. A former lieutenant in the U.S. Army, Cullen taught creative writing at the University of Colorado in the mid-1990s. He is currently working on several magazine projects.

Seamus Kelters, a television producer for the British Broadcasting Corporation. A native of Ireland, Kelters is a co-creator of Lost Lives, a highly detailed chronicle of the lives of the more than 3,600 men, women, and children killed in Northern Ireland from 1966-2000. He joined the BBC as a broadcast journalist and was a journalist for the Irish News newspaper.

Julia A. Lieblich, a religion writer for The Chicago Tribune. Author of the book Sisters: Lives of Devotion and Defiance, a nonfiction portrait of four nuns in the Roman Catholic Church, Lieblich's recent work includes articles on the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. She also has contributed work to various national newspapers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times; and freelance articles to Ms., and Time magazines.

Linell N. Smith, a feature writer for the Baltimore Sun newspaper. A past winner of the Dart Award for Excellence in Reporting on Victims of Violence for "The Joeseph Palczynski Story" a two-part series on the lives of six women victimized by one man's physical and psychological abuse. Smith's recent work includes an in-depth portrait of a woman living with bipolar disease. She also has lectured on journalism and feature writing.

Peter J. Spielmann, an editor and supervisor at The Associated Press and adjunct faculty member at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. He was a special correspondent for the Associated Press in Belgium in 1999 reporting on NATO actions as well as international aid efforts in the Balkans.

Ruth Teichroeb is an investigative reporter at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer where she has worked since 1997. Her stories have uncovered abuse in residential schools for the deaf, revealed police officials' failure to crack down on domestic violence in the ranks and most recently documented the mistreatment of troubled developmentally disabled adults in the care of private companies. Her investigations have won national and regional awards, including a National Press Club award, a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, two C. B. Blethen Memorial Awards and two Best of the West Awards. Before joining the P-I, Ruth was a reporter at the Winnipeg Free Press and author of the 1997 book "Flowers on My Grave: How an Ojibwa Boy's Death Helped Break the Silence on Child Abuse" published by HarperCollins Canada.