News businesses in Denver might be struggling financially, but great journalism persists. Channel 7 has won the prestigious Peabody Award for journalistic enterprise for an investigation of children who died while in the care of the state of Colorado. “Failing the Children: Deadly Mistakes,” is a year-long series of stories by reporter John Ferrugia, producers Art Kane and Tom Burke, and photojournalist Jason Foster, writes The Denver Post.

“Motivated by the starvation death of a 7-year-old boy, the station’s persistent investigation turned up systemic incompetence in Denver’s Department of Human Services, and then broadened into a state-wide story,” the Peabody citation reads.

It’s the second Peabody for Channel 7 (the station’s first was in 2004 for its story on the sex scandal at the Air Force Academy) and Ferrugia’s third (he won his first in 1977 at a Kansas City television station).