Interested in diving into the investigative side of business journalism? Learn from the best! This series interviews winners of the Barlett and Steele Awards about their reporting process including the challenges and obstacles they faced throughout their investigation.
In this edition of We Mean Business: “How They Did It,” Ananya Bhargava talks to Brontë Wittpenn about her recent award-winning coverage on the systemic use of a flawed estimator tool, 360Value, that leaves homeowners drastically underinsured. “Burned” won the 2025 Gold prize in the Barlett and Steele Awards Regional/Local category. Visit the San Francisco Chronicle to read their investigation or businessjournalism.org/awards to view all the 2025 winners.
In this episode of How They Did It, Quỳnh Lê talks with Alexa York, winner of the 2025 Barlett & Steele Award for Outstanding Young Journalist. York shares how her investigation at The Blade revealed radioactive groundwater contamination in Luckey, Ohio, a discovery that led to state and federal action. Now a graduate student at Columbia University, she reflects on what it took to report the story and what she’s still working to uncover.
Visit businessjournalism.org/awards to view all the 2025 winners.
In this edition of “How They Did It,” Ananya Bhargava interviews Megan Fan Munce and Susie Neilson about their recent award-winning investigation, “Burned.” This investigation highlights the systemic use of a flawed estimator tool, 360Value, that leaves homeowners drastically underinsured. The reporters showed that 360Value relies on outdated and incomplete data that consistently understates the actual cost of rebuilding homes, often by hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Their series won the 2025 Gold prize in the Barlett and Steele Awards Regional/Local category. Visit the San Francisco Chronicle to read their investigation or businessjournalism.org/awards to view all the 2025 winners.
In this special edition of We Mean Business, Ananya Bhargava interviews KFF Health News’ David Hilzenrath. He is a member of the 2024 Barlett and Steele Gold Award-winning team in the Regional/Local Category. Their investigative series, “Overpayment Outrage,” a collaboration of eight local TV news stations and KFF Health News, helped uncover the immense toll Social Security repayment demands have on some of the nation’s most vulnerable families. Hilzenrath discusses the behind-the-scenes of this investigation, including their biggest challenges and how they overcame them to tell this story and create a roadmap for Congress to make needed program reforms.
In this edition of We Mean Business: “How They Did It,” Ananya Bhargava interviews Ames Alexander and David Raynor about their recent award-winning investigative series “Hopes Foreclosed.” This investigation uncovered how often HOAs in North Carolina are foreclosing on homeowners. It revealed not only a troubling trend of HOA foreclosures in the region but how many of those foreclosures were due to debts of less than $2,000.
Their series won the 2024 Bronze prize in the Barlett and Steele Awards Regional/Local category. Visit The Charlotte Observer to read their investigation or visit the awards page to view all the 2024 winners.
In this special edition of “How They Did It,” Ananya Bhargava interviews Chicago Tribune reporters Lisa Schencker and Emily Hoerner about their recent award-winning investigative series “Medical Misconduct.” The two reporters demonstrate the great investigative work that can be done when an investigative reporter teams up with a beat reporter to dive deeper into their realm of expertise. Schencker, a reporter covering the business of healthcare, spent many years reporting on allegations of abuse by a single doctor but felt there was still more to the story. With the assistance of Hoerner, a long-time investigative reporter, the two reporters were able to uncover repeated mishandling of sexual abuse allegations within multiple well-known Illinois health systems. In this episode, the reporters discuss how they got started on the investigation, the obstacles they faced, and what surprised them most about the process.
Their series won the 2024 Silver prize in the Barlett and Steele Awards Regional/Local category. Visit the Chicago Tribune to read their investigation or businessjournalism.org/awards to view all the 2024 winners.
In this special edition of We Mean Business, Ananya Bhargava interviews Jodie Fleischer, the managing editor of investigative content and collaboration for Cox Media Group. She is a member of the 2024 Barlett and Steele Gold Award-winning team in the Regional/Local Category. Their investigative series, “Overpayment Outrage,” is a collaboration of eight local TV news stations across seven states. With the assistance of KFF Health News, the team helped uncover the immense toll Social Security repayment demands have on some of the nation’s most vulnerable families. Fleischer discusses the behind-the-scenes of this investigation, including how it began and what it took to make the collaboration happen.
Visit KFF Health News to read their written investigative work or businessjournalism.org/awards to view all the 2024 winners.
Jeffrey Timmermans, Director of the Reynolds Center, sits down for an interview with award-winning journalist James B. Steele, half of the namesake for the Barlett and Steele Awards. Steele shares how he got started in business journalism, how his long-term partnership with Donald Barlett began, and the value of having a “document state of mind.” He also gives young journalists tips on how to find and write award-winning investigative stories.
With the 2024 Barlett and Steele Awards ceremony right around the corner on November 20, 2024, we’ll be sharing interviews with some of this year’s winners on our podcast. Stay tuned!
For more information about the Barlett and Steele Awards, visit our awards page.
Janaé Bradford interviews Bloomberg reporters Caleb Melby and Polly Mosendz, two members of the bronze award-winning team for their investigation ‘Questionable Practices.’ Their investigation brings the first important revelations about the largest medical mental health startup, Cerebral, and its effort to bring telemedicine techniques to mental healthcare.
Bloomberg reporters found a lack of delicate consideration assessment from the million-dollar business when prescribing medication to their patients. Listen to what the reporters had to say about what it took to make this investigation happen.
In this episode, host Jenna Miller speaks with Los Angeles Times reporter Harriet Ryan and editor Matt Lait, to discuss their award-winning investigation, “Oxycontin’s 12-hour Problem.” The two reveal how doctors were not only were many doctors being investigated for overprescribing a drug, they were often linked to bad pharmacies that lacked state oversight. The pair share some tips for young journalists and what decisions they made that helped humanize the business story. Their project took home the Bronze Award at the 2016 Barlett and Steele Awards for Investigative Journalism.
Christopher Weaver of the Wall Street Journal spoke with Jenna Miller of the Reynolds Center to discuss his work with the award-winning investigation, “Testing Theranos.” This project took home the Silver Award at the 2016 Barlett and Steele Awards for Investigative Journalism. Weaver explains how the 10-month investigation began and the challenges they faced questioning a company that had become a media-darling. He also explains some of the impact the investigation had not only for the company, but for many of the company’s investors, employees, and clients.
Bastian Obermayer of the Munich based paper Süddeutsche Zeitung and Gerard Ryle, Director of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, spoke with Jenna Miller to discuss their work on the award-winning “Panama Papers.” Their organizations, along with more than 100 other media partners, took home the Gold Award at the 2016 Barlett and Steele Awards for Investigative Journalism. They discuss how the investigation began and what it took for so many journalists across the globe to collaborate on such a large investigation.
In this episode, hosted by Megan Calcote, Katherine Fitzgerald and Eddie Keller interview Robin McDowell and Martha Mendoza of the Associated Press about their 2015 Barlett and Steele Gold award-winning investigation “Fish Slavery.” McDowell and Mendoza explain what sparked this investigation, some of the decisions they had to make to protect their sources before publication, and what it took to conduct award-winning work.
In this episode, Katherine Fitzgerlad and Eddie Keller interview Christopher Serres and Glenn Howatt of the Minneapolis Star Tribune about their award-winning investigation “Unchecked Care.” Their investigation exposed issues in the home care industry, including inadequate care, inadequate training for aides, and aggressive sales tactics by for-profit franchises. Serres and Keller give advice to new reporters on working with data and where to get started.
“Unchecked Care” won the Silver Award in the 2015 Barlett and Steele Awards for Investigative Business Journalism. Megan Calcote is the host of the How to Cover Money series. Check out the full four-part series:
In this episode, host Megan Calcote shares a conversation Katherine Fitzgerald and Eddie Keller had with Pat Beall of The Palm Beach Post. Her award-winning investigation, Dying for Care, won the 2015 Bronze Award in the Barlett and Steele Awards for the best in investigative business journalism. Beall shares some of her advice for young journalists, what sparked this investigation, and why she enjoys her work.
This week How To Cover Money kicks off Season 2: Tips from Top Journalists. Co-hosts Micki Maynard and Mark Remillard caught up with Michael Grabell of ProPublica to talk about his recent investigative reporting series on the dangers temporary workers face in the United States. Grabell’s series was awarded the 2014 Barlett and Steele Award. This episode offers some tips on data journalism, taking on big stories, and organizing your work to include investigative work in your daily reporting schedule, even when you’re not a full-time investigative reporter.
Two Minute Tips
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