It was a gripping story, one any real sharp reporter would want to be working on, but just how gripping Chauncey W. Bailey Jr. could not have guessed.

It was about a crooked business in Oakland, Calif., that Bailey had good reason to believe was really a front for a gang involved in various criminal activities, including murder.

Bailey was the editor of a small weekly serving Oakland's black community, The Oakland Post, and on Aug. 2 of last summer, Bailey's story took a dramatic turn. Bailey was gunned down on his way to work. He was 57 years old.

Yesterday, Bailey received a George Polk Award for his work on the story that ended his life. Given out by Long Island University, the Polk awards are among the most prestigious in American journalism.

A former Detroit News reporter, Bailey received the award for local journalism.

Initially, the killing of Bailey got heavy national press coverage. Journalists get sued for stories but seldom shot to death. The most recent such killing had been in 1993. Back years earlier, a Chicago reporter had been killed by the Capone mob.

Eventually police charged a handyman at the bakery, the Your Black Muslim Bakery. Others were arrested and the business closed down. A statement accompanying the award reads: "In a career spanning more than 30 years, Bailey earned a reputation as a tireless, hard-nosed journalist who was dedicated to addressing the concerns of black communities in California's Bay Area."

The Polk Awards were named after a CBS correspondent, George Polk, who was killed in 1948 while covering the civil war in Greece.

Other winners:

Shai Oster of The Wall Street Journal for environmental reporting for his reporting on the risks from efforts to reap hydroelectric power from China's Yangtze River.

Washington Post reporters Barton D. Gellman and Jo Becker, who's since joined The New York Times, won for political reporting for a probing look into Vice President Dick Cheney and his role in White House decision-making.

Leila Fadel, Baghdad bureau chief for the McClatchy Newspapers, for foreign reporting, the Polk awarding committee observing: "Her work provided a comprehensive array of disturbing, first-hand accounts of violence and conflict by juxtaposing the agonizing plight of families in ethnically torn neighborhoods with the braggadocio of a vengeful insurgent proud of his murderous exploits."

Joshua M. Marshall, editor and publisher of Talking Points Memo, a blog, for his early coverage of the dismissals of U.S. attorneys for political reasons by the Bush White House.

The New York Times' Charles A. Duhigg for medical reporting for a series on the mistreatment of the elderly by this country's healthcare industry.

The Charlotte Observer for economic reporting for a long-running series on foreclosures on the part of major homebuilders.

The Chicago Tribune for its reporting on the injuries and deaths of children from dangerous toys.

The Clarion-Ledger's Jerry Mitchell for state reporting for uncovering incompetence and worse in Mississippi's state health department, along with the rise of such diseases as tuberculosis and syphilis.

Edward Chancellor for his "Ponzi Nation" in Institutional Investor magazine that looked into the risky practices in the financial markets that led to the sub-prime mortgage mess.

ABC News senior foreign correspondent Jim Sciutto, along with producer Angus Hines and cameraman/ producer Tom Murphy, for television reporting for their coverage of Myanmar, formerly Burma, and the news blackout as the government cracked down demonstrations by students and Buddhist monks over rising fuel prices.

Jeremy Scahill, author of "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army," from Nation Books, for his reporting on the misconduct by the company in Iraq.

Joshua A. Kors, a freelancer, for a two-part series in The Nation on an Iraq war hero who won a Purple Heart but was denied medical benefits for disabilities he incurred while fighting in Iraq.

The New Yorker's John McPhee was given the Polk career award for his work in non-fiction. McPhee, who is 77, has been with the magazine since 1965 and has written a number of books.