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.

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.

Regional/Local Publications

2022
Silver
A year-long investigation examines the squalid living conditions in some of the city’s worst apartments. The reporters found that the housing shortage and government inaction enabled absentee landlords to squeeze the properties for higher profits while putting tenants’ safety in peril. Through a three-part series with character-driven stories and extensive data analysis, reporters show that much of the region’s affordable housing is nearly uninhabitable.

Regional/Local Publications

2022
Bronze
This story follows Thelma Freedman and her two grandsons who were hospitalized in 2019 for upper respiratory infections. They live in the Glades, an area in Florida that is home to growing half of the country’s cane sugar. Each year, growers will burn their fields as a harvesting technique that covers the town in ash. The investigation found that residents were exposed to pollutants in ways that monitoring systems had missed.

Outstanding Young Journalist

2022
Gold
This investigation revealed how easily companies can slip through major systemic gaps in the government systems that are intended to protect the most vulnerable. Bedi rigourously worked to connect with people who were harmed by the devices to continue telling their stories even after the initial story was published. Bedi’s reporting prompted Congress to investigate the FDA’s regulation of the HeartWare device and pushed the manufacturer, Medtronic, to expand financial assistance to consumers.

Best in Investigative Business

2021
Gold
This investigation exposed how the wealthiest people in America avoided paying their fair share of taxes at a time when wealth inequality has become a national crisis. Drawing on a massive collection of IRS data, the investigation revealed the shockingly low rates paid by billionaires and the machinations used to legally tell the IRS they make modest incomes while living lavish lifestyles.

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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Barlett and Steele Award Medallion
The 2025 Barlett and Steele Awards are now open for submissions!
Submit your work in one of three categories. There are cash prizes for winners and never any entry fees!