A top journalism award is going to slain editor

NEW YORK (AP) — A California newspaper editor who was killed while investigating a Black Muslim splinter group's financial dealings is a posthumous winner of a George Polk Award.

Chauncey W. Bailey Jr., editor of the weekly Oakland Post, was shot last August while walking to his job. Bailey had been investigating the Your Black Muslim Bakery chain. A handyman from the bakery was charged with killing Bailey and is awaiting trial.

Bailey won the annual Polk award for local journalism.

Other 2007 winners include Shai Oster of The Wall Street Journal for reporting on the landslides and other environmental damage caused by China's construction of a $22 billion dam, and Joshua Micah Marshall of the political blog Talking Points Memo for his coverage of the Bush administration's firings of federal prosecutors around the country.

The 14 awards, among the top prizes in U.S. journalism, are being announced Tuesday by Long Island University and will be presented at an April 17 luncheon in New York.

The Committee to Protect Journalists said Bailey's death was the first targeted killing of a journalist in the United States since 1993. Seven men — including the handyman charged with shooting Bailey — were arrested after the shooting on charges including real estate fraud and kidnapping.