Barlett & Steele Awards
Honoring the best in investigative business journalism since 2007
How winning journalists do it
Interested in how journalists create award-winning work? Check out some of the interviews our graduate students have had with past winners discussing the challenges they faced, story inspiration, and advice they have for students who want to do investigative work.
Written work
Podcasts
About the awards
Since their inception in 2007, the Barlett & Steele Awards have blazed a high-visibility path of excellence in rewarding incisive business reporting that “tells us something we don’t know.”
The awards are named for the illustrious investigative business journalist team of Don Barlett & Jim Steele. Donald Barlett and James Steele worked together for more than four decades, first at The Philadelphia Inquirer (1971-1997), where they won two Pulitzer Prizes and scores of other national journalism awards, then at Time magazine (1997-2006), where they earned two National Magazine Awards, becoming the first journalists in history to win both the Pulitzer and its magazine equivalent, and most recently were contributing editors at Vanity Fair (2006-2017). The Washington Journalism Review said of Barlett and Steele: “They are almost certainly the best team in the history of investigative reporting.”
Administered by The Reynolds Center for Business Journalism, the Barlett & Steele awards for Gold, Silver and Bronze each fall honor journalists and news organizations ranging in size from local to international.
“We’ve been so impressed with the quality of these stories that year after year have delved into the stories that nobody knew about–or shed light on areas they thought they knew about,” said Jim Steele.
