Newspaper gives $5K of Pulitzer Prize money to benefit child

In this July 13, 2017 photo, Stephanie Gaffney bounces her daughter, Elliana, when she was 8 months old and visiting the neonatal-abstinence syndrome clinic at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. Image: Cara Owsley/The Cincinnati Enquirer via AP

CINCINNATI (AP) — The Cincinnati Enquirer is donating $5,000 of its 2018 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting to benefit a little girl featured in the newspaper’s winning report on heroin.

The Enquirer reports the money will be the first deposit in a fund to assist Elliana Russ. The then-8-month-old child and her mother, Stephanie Gaffney, were featured in the newspaper’s “Seven Days of Heroin” report last September.

Twenty-eight-year-old Gaffney died of an overdose of a fentanyl combination 10 days after speaking with the newspaper in July for the story. Enquirer Editor Beryl Love said the news organization thought it “only right” to use a portion of its $15,000 prize money to help her daughter.

A Hamilton County judge later granted custody of Elliana to Gaffney’s mother and her husband. NVG

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