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

2013
Gold
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.

Best in Investigative Business

2013
Silver
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.

Best in Investigative Business

2013
Bronze
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.

Best in Investigative Business

2012
Gold
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.
Pulitzer Prize Recipient

Best in Investigative Business

2012
Silver
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.

Best in Investigative Business

2012
Bronze
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.

Best in Investigative Business

2012
Honorable Mention

Best in Investigative Business

2012
Honorable Mention

Best in Investigative Business

2012
Honorable Mention

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

Years

Categories

Place

Search

Get Two Minute Tips For Business Journalism Delivered To Your Email Every Tuesday

Two Minute Tips

Every Tuesday we send out a quick-read email with tips for business journalism. Sign up now and get one Tuesday.