An investigative team led by Vancouver Province deputy editor-in-chief Fabian Dawson has won the prestigious Daniel Pearl Award for 2005’s outstanding story about South Asia, or South Asians in North America.

Dawson's team comprised Calgary Herald writer Valerie Fortney and photographer Ted Rhodes and Province writer Michael Roberts

The team beat out finalists from the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times and Business Week magazine.

The award was announced today in New York by the South Asian Journalists Association.

The Daniel Pearl award is a competition open to all Canadian and American print media outlets

The Province-Calgary Herald five-part investigative series chronicled a hidden tragedy entitled: Abandoned Brides: Canada’s Shame, India’s Sorrow.

The series was a joint public service investigative project about sham weddings by Canadians to women in India. The gripping story, which ran over five days in October 2005, had wide-ranging impact, including changes in governmental procedures and the issuance of a religious decree condemning the practice.

“The judges were impressed by the scope and impact of the series across many thousands of miles,” said Sandeep Junnarkar, SAJA awards chair and a professor at the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism. “At a time when newsrooms are cutting back, it was nice to see two newspapers co-operate to do investigative work in the best tradition of Danny Pearl: Hard-hitting, yet filled with humanity.”

Dawson, originally from Malaysia, worked at The New Straits Times and Malay Mail before moving to Canada with his wife Anne. The couple have two children Deborah and Joshua.

Dawson has been cited for excellence in journalism in 2002 and 2003 by the Jack Webster Foundation while many of the stories he has directed have won journalism awards. The Canadian National Newspaper Awards Board of Governors named him as the recipient of 2004 Unsung Hero of Canadian journalism.

The "unsung heroes" award recognizes journalists who generally toil in anonymity but are often considered key individuals who make things happen.

The NNA awards are the highest honours in Canadian newspaper journalism.

Dawson's investigative work has also been the basis for four documentaries and a made-for-TV movie.

Fellow Malaysian, Harbinder Singh Sewak, publisher of the award-winning Asian Pacific Post in Vancouver described Dawson as a trail-blazing journalist.

"He makes all Malaysians proud with his achievements," said Sewak whose newspaper runs investigative stories. Dawson was the editorial advisor for the Post prior to taking up his position at The Province.

Daniel Pearl was Mumbai bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal. He was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan by terrorists in 2002.

Awards are being presented at a ceremony on July 15 at Columbia University in New York. NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams is also being honoured.

The Abandoned Brides series also won a special citation of merit at the National Newspaper Awards this year.

Here is the award breakdown:

Categories for US/Canadian media outlets

The Daniel Pearl Award for Outstanding story about South Asia, or South Asians in North America: Print

1. Fabian Dawson, Valerie Fortney, Michael Roberts, Ted Rhodes, Vancouver Province and Calgary Herald, for Abandoned Brides: Canada's Shame, India's Sorrow. A joint public service investigative project by two newspapers about sham weddings by Canadians to women in India. The story, which ran over five days in October 2005, had wide-ranging impact, including changes in governmental procedures and the issuance of a religious decree condemning the practice.

2. Cam Simpson, Chicago Tribune, for Pipeline to Peril. An investigative series about the deaths of 12 Nepalese men massacred in Iraq and how they were pawns in an international trafficking scheme, one that gets financial support from the U.S. government, which relies on an illicit pipeline of cheap labor for America's military bases in the region.

3. (tie) Amy Waldman, The New York Times, for India Accelerating. A four-part series on India's vast new highway network, its biggest public works project since independence and all that the project is helping to spread: capitalism, transformation of villages and AIDS.

3. (tie) BusinessWeek staff for China & India: What You Need to Know Now. A special cover story that comprehensively compared the rise of these two giants and offered reportage, analysis and guidance for how America can do business and compete with both countries.