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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.

Best in Investigative Business

2016

Gold

The Panama Papers

As the largest investigation in journalism history, the papers are a trove of leaked documents from inside Mossack Fonseca, a Panama-based law firm that creates offshore companies to hide the financial activities of the rich and powerful. A leak to Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung of 11.5 million documents involving 210,000 companies was shared with journalists and they found Mossack Fonseca created or managed companies for Ponzi schemes, drug kingpins and dozens of Americans accused of fraud or financial misconduct.

Publication: CPI’s International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and more than 100 media partners worldwide

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Pulitzer Prize Recipient

Best in Investigative Business

2016

Silver

Testing Theranos

By: John Carreyrou, Christopher Weaver and Michael Siconolfi

This investigation exposed how the laboratory firm that claimed to test patient health by drawing just a few drops of blood with a finger prick seriously misled patients and investors. As a result of the stories, the company has revised or voided tens of thousands of inaccurate patient blood tests, closed its main laboratory and been sanctioned by federal health regulators. While facing contentious litigation threats from Theranos, the reporters also reported that former employees had filed complaints with regulatory agencies alleging the company concealed problems.

Publication: The Wall Street Journal

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Best in Investigative Business

2016

Bronze

OxyContin's 12-Hour Problem

By: Harriet Ryan, Lisa Girion and Scott Glover

This investigation found that OxyContin, the nation’s bestselling painkiller, for many patients wears off hours earlier than its claim of 12-hour relief, worsening the addiction epidemic surrounding the drug. The Times, which has been monitoring the product for five years, obtained thousands of pages of confidential records from more than three decades covering the drug’s development and marketing by privately held Purdue Pharma. These indicated the firm knew about the product’s problem even before its 1996 debut, then continued to insist that it worked for 12 hours in the face of growing evidence from doctors and others that it didn’t.

Publication: The Los Angeles Times

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Best in Investigative Business

2015

Gold

Fish Slavery

By: Robin McDowell, Margie Mason, Martha Mendoza and Esther Htusan

At considerable personal risk, reporters interviewed captive Burmese slaves on a remote Indonesian island to expose labor abuses by a Thai fishing industry that ships its cargo to major U.S. supermarkets and pet food companies. By satellite they also monitored shipments to a Thai port to determine which private companies were responsible. As a direct result of their reporting, 800 slaves were freed and suppliers were fired by the biggest Thai seafood company. In addition, U.S. business groups lodged protests with the Thai and Indonesian governments and an Indonesian government investigation resulted in arrests.

Publication: The Associated Press

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Pulitzer Prize Recipient

Best in Investigative Business

2015

Silver

Unchecked Care

By: Christopher Serres and Glenn Howatt

The series explored dramatic growth in home-health agencies due to policies that encourage frail and elderly patients to receive care at home rather than at hospitals and nursing facilities. It found erratic home-care agencies leaving fragile patients without care for extended periods; nursing aides with inadequate training undertaking risky procedures; and for-profit care franchises using aggressive sales tactics. Since home-care agencies are unlicensed in Minnesota and most states, there are almost no regulatory documents or data.

Publication: Minneapolis Star Tribune

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Best in Investigative Business

2015

Bronze

Dying for Care

By: Pat Beall

This six-month investigation of prison inmate medical care by for-profit companies found soaring fatalities; indifferent medical treatment; and a corrections agency and a billion-dollar corporation that hid data on death and negligent care. Beall spent months trying to obtain death data from the state, which delayed and denied access to records, then lied about their existence. Inmates feared retribution; mail between Beall and inmates often disappeared; and court monitoring reports were heavily redacted. Inmates with fatal cancers were treated with Tylenol, medicines were abruptly discontinued and surgeries were delayed.

Publication: The Palm Beach Post

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Best in Investigative Business

2014

Gold

Temp Land

By: Michael Grabell

They found that major companies are increasingly turning to temporary workers to fill the most dangerous and dirtiest jobs in their factories, warehouses and processing plants. This exhaustive analysis of millions of workers’ compensation claims and accident reports found that temps are hurt at rates as high as six times that of regular employees. It led to changes in temp agency practices, numerous investigations by authorities and a nationwide data collection initiative by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for the purpose of tightening lax rules.

Publication: ProPublica

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Best in Investigative Business

2014

Silver

The Child Exchange

By: Megan Twohey

The stories uncovered a clearinghouse of children through a cluster of little-known Internet bulletin boards where parents sought to get rid of children they had adopted overseas. Twohey and her colleagues documented illicit child-custody transfers by tracking thousands of transactions in which children were passed along to strangers, thereby bypassing judges and social workers who serve as the safety net to protect kids. Since the investigation, several states have enacted new restrictions on child advertising, custody transfers or both. Twohey testified before Congress and a four-agency Government Accountability Report was formed.

Publication: Reuters

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Best in Investigative Business

2014

Bronze

Hospice Inc.

By: Ben Hallman and Shane Shifflett

Their nine-month investigation, consisting of both interviews and data-gathering, found that the average U.S. hospice has not been inspected in a number of years. In addition, families are often subject to fraud and abuse as they are misled about the nature and costs of hospice. One result of this work, Hospice Check, is a research tool available for use by journalists and researchers.

Publication: The Huffington Post

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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.”