By: Abigail Richards

The Seattle Times recently won a Public Service award from The Associated Press Media Editors Association for its efforts in uncovering wrong doings within Washington State's healthcare. The Associated Press reports the newspaper was honored with one of these recognition awards due to its investigation into the state's practice of "steering people to methadone to reduce its Medicaid costs."

The three part series, "Methadone and the Politics of Pain," exposed how more than 2,000 people died from methadone overdoses between 2003 and 2011. Methadone was given out as pain relievers to people on state-subsidized healthcare because it was cheap. However, it's also "unpredictable" and without proper treatment guidance, can be dangerous.

Judges in the 2012 APME Journalism Excellence Awards found the series to be "tremendous, groundbreaking work." Adding "it opened eyes and prompted swift action. This is public service journalism at its best."

The APME official website reports the awards honor "superior journalism and innovation among newspapers, radio, television and online news sites across the United States and Canada. The awards seek to promote excellence by recognizing work that is well written and incisively reported and that effectively challenges the status quo."