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A stellar track record:

Barlett & Steele Award Winners

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, who have worked together more than four decades, receiving two Pulitzer Prizes, two National Magazine awards, and a long list of other journalism awards.

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.

Filter Past Winners

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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Best in Investigative Business

2013
Gold

America's Worst Charities

By: Kris Hundley and Kendall Taggart

In a joint investigation, reporters identified charities that steered as much as 95 percent of donations to boiler-room operations and direct-mail companies, leaving only a token amount to help those in need. They assembled interactive databases to help readers examine the worst 50 charities and state enforcement actions against thousands more organizations.
Publication: Tampa Bay Times and The Center for Investigative Reporting
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Author Q&A

Best in Investigative Business

2013
Silver

The United States of Subsidies

By: Louise Story

The project tabulated the $80 billion that local governments dole out to corporations each year in tax breaks and other business incentives – expenditures to recruit and keep businesses that may or may not produce results. Story methodically contacted revenue departments and agencies that administered incentives to compute the total cost to taxpayers that had never been compiled before.
Publication: The New York Times
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Author Q&A

Best in Investigative Business

2013
Bronze

Inside Game: How Corporate Insiders Profit Ahead of the Public

By: Susan Pulliam, Rob Barry, Michael Siconolfi and Jean Eaglesham

More than six months went into creating a database to examine how more than 20,000 corporate executives traded their own companies’ stock over the course of eight years. It revealed that more than 1,000 executives had generated big profits or avoided big losses. The FBI and SEC launched investigations the day after the initial article.
Publication: The Wall Street Journal
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Author Q&A

Best in Investigative Business

2012
Gold

Vast Mexico Bribery Case Hushed Up by Wal-Mart after Top-Level Struggle

By: David Barstow

Barstow obtained hundreds of confidential documents and interviewed important players in the company’s internal inquiry. He discovered Wal-Mart had received powerful evidence that its Mexican executives used systematic bribery payments totaling more than $24 million to obtain zoning rulings and construction permits.
Publication: The New York Times
Author Q&A
Pulitzer Prize Recipient

Best in Investigative Business

2012
Silver

Ghost Factories

By: Alison Young and Peter Eisler

The series involved a 14-month investigation that revealed the locations of more than 230 long-forgotten smelters and the poisonous lead they left behind. Reporters used handheld X-ray devices to collect and test 1,000 soil samples to prove there was a serious threat to children living in dozens of neighborhoods.
Publication: USA Today

Best in Investigative Business

2012
Bronze

Prognosis: Profits

By: Ames Alexander, Karen Garloch, Joseph Neff and David Raynor

Reporters dissected the finances of large institutions through documents and sources to paint a compelling picture of nonprofit hospitals that function as for-profit institutions—often to the detriment of their care and charity missions. Discovered were inflated prices on drugs and procedures, lawsuits against thousands of needy patients and minimal charity care to poor and uninsured patients.
Publication: The Charlotte Observer and The Raleigh News & Observer

Best in Investigative Business

2012
Honorable Mention

The Fed's Trillion-Dollar Secret

By: Bob Ivry, Bradley Keoun and Phil Kuntz

Publication: Bloomberg News

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.”

Two men dressed in nice suits stand for a portrait
Image from barlettandsteele.com

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