Barlett & Steele Award Recipients

The winners of the Barlett & Steele Awards demonstrate time and time again the importance of investigative business journalism in exposing corporate wrongdoing and protecting the vulnerable. Winning entries are chosen not only for their journalistic merit but the impact that ripples out from the publication of the investigation. All of these investigations have led to significant change, with many seeing legislative reforms, federal investigations, or major changes in business practices that ultimately benefit the lives of everyday people. 

An investigation into a business, especially private for-profit corporations, often comes with major hurdles, including tight-lipped employees, a lack of available data, legal barriers, and working with limited resources. These hurdles force journalists to get creative in their methods and the solutions they come up with show the sheer determination and willpower they possess to tell the stories we don’t know, but should.

All of these winning journalists and publications continue the long-standing legacy of Don Barlett and Jim Steele.

View the annual winners or filter through individual winners below.

Global/National Publications

2023
Bronze
The team of reporters probed whether government regulatory officials were investing in shares whose value might rise or fall depending on decisions made by them or their bosses. The challenge for the reporters in this case was to learn what stocks the regulators bought or sold and when. In most cases, there was no easily available record of what the investment holdings of officials in the regulatory system were at relevant times. The Journal revealed that more than 2,600 top federal officials traded stocks in companies they helped oversee, often in violation of the law.

Regional/Local Publications

2023
Gold
Following a tip about exponentially rising case numbers of silicosis in Latino workers the journalists began their joint investigation. Silicosis is a deadly lung disease caused by inhalation of fine silica dust, but was virtually unknown for centuries – until the recent popularity of artificial stone countertops. The reporters discovered that demand for this popular new product, coupled with poor workplace protections for stone workers in the Los Angeles area, created a fatal trend.

Regional/Local Publications

2023
Silver
The investigation revealed how companies like Google and Amazon received considerable tax breaks from local cities and gobbled up precious water resources. These pieces show how the initial triumph of landing a huge contract with a large company like Amazon in a rural, sparsely populated area was deflated by the sacrifice and ethical lapses that came along with it: conflicts of interests with part-time politicians, increased power demands that translate into dirtier electricity, and the secrecy behind the massive amounts of water required for cooling servers in a region grappling with an extended drought.

Regional/Local Publications

2023
Bronze
This series detailed how private equity firms are standing in the way of homeownership for Black and Brown communities in Metro Atlanta and making renting a nightmare for their tenants. These firms quickly purchase blocks of homes in neighborhoods with cash offers that push out other buyers and convert them into rentals, leaving many individuals with no other option but to rent from them. Then, as landlords, the firms make it nearly impossible for tenants to reach them for maintenance requests when their homes begin to deteriorate.

Outstanding Young Journalist

2023
Gold
This investigation examines the harrowing reality of a for-profit hospice industry that preys on vulnerable individuals in order to make money. Kofman’s reporting found that an industry that began as a visionary notion to allow terminally ill patients to die with dignity in their own homes has since turned into a for-profit hustle plagued by exploitation.

Global/National Publications

2022
Gold
In their seven-part podcast series, a team of reporters teamed up to expose the limitations of government oversight within the troubled-teen treatment industry. In the last six years, 20,000 kids from all over the country have been sent to more than 100 privately run treatment programs in Utah. This investigation found that the state took a hands-off approach to regulate these facilities, which enabled rampant abuse.

Global/National Publications

2022
Silver
This investigation examines how more than 130 federal judges broke a 1974 law that requires federal judges to recuse or excuse themselves from a case involving parties in which they or their family members have legal or equitable interest. WSJ examined 700 judges who held stocks with large companies and tens of thousands of cases from 2010 to 2018 and found 129 federal district judges and two other federal plaintiff judges to be in violation of the law.

Global/National Publications

2022
Bronze
This brings the first important revelations about the largest medical mental-health startup, Cerebral, and its effort to bring telemedicine techniques to mental healthcare. With the demand for mental health services increasing, companies are finding ways to provide patients with quick solutions to their problems. Cerebral was one of the companies to start prescribing controlled substances online during relaxed rules that came out of the pandemic.

Regional/Local Publications

2022
Gold
The investigation found that companies pay to take people’s future settlement checks worth hundreds of thousands of dollars for immediate and much smaller payments. The reporting duo searched through thousands of pages of court documents to examine deals implemented from 2000 to 2020. They found a trend in places such as Minnesota that show how much money victims receive versus what the agreement was and the types of victims that suffer from yet another catastrophe.

About Donald Barlett & James 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.”

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Image from barlettandsteele.com

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