Every
year I attend the Goldsmith Prize presentation for investigative
reporting at Harvard. The ceremony – hosted by the Kennedy School
of Government's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public
Policy – is always inspirational, and has certainly pushed me to
bust balls and pursue tougher stories in my own career. The Goldsmith
medal honors the most hard-nosed detail diggers in the business –
men and women who impact policy and lives for the better through
their work.
Checking
out this week's 21st anniversary of the award, I got to
thinking about the generic running line that so-called mainstream,
traditional media is negligent if not inconsequential. I won't
disagree for a second that the majority of broadsheets and newscasts
offer sad excuses for reporting. But there are still plenty of
examples of deep spelunking, of hardcore reporting in a day and age
when courageous muckraking is more of an exception than the norm.
There's
a difference between journalists like this year's Goldsmith-nominated
New York Times writers, who exposed a rash of physical and
systemic abuse in New York's group home system for the
developmentally disabled, and what so many self-styled partisan Web
martyrs engage in. It's also a leap from the gotcha nonsense
practiced by five o'clock news snipers everywhere. These reporters
aren't chasing horny politicians across parking lots to ask questions
about their online dick pics.
In the
words of Shorenstein director Alex Jones, a Pulitzer Prize winner and
New York Times veteran, these nominees reflect “a high point
for American journalism” – ABC's 10-month investigation into the
violent side of the Peace Corps, ProPublica's examination of
institutional racism in the Justice Department's presidential pardon
process. The purpose of the Goldsmith, says Jones, isn't just to
acknowledge one winner, but to bring attention to all of the
finalists. We couldn't agree more.
The
Runners-Up...
Brian
Ross, Anna Schecter and the ABC News Investigative Team
ABC
News 20/20
"Peace
Corps: A Trust Betrayed"
Jim
Morris, Ronnie Greene, Chris Hamby and Keith Epstein,
Center
for Public Integrity
and
Elizabeth
Shogren, Howard Berkes, Sandra Bartlett and Susanne Reber
National
Public Radio
"Poisoned
Places: Toxic Air, Neglected Communities"
Mark
Greenblatt, David Raziq and Keith Tomshe
KHOU-TV
(CBS Houston)
"A
Matter of Risk: Radiation, Drinking Water, and Deception"
Danny
Hakim and Russell Buettner
The
New York Times
"Abused
and Used"
Dafna
Linzer and Jennifer LaFleur
ProPublica
(co-published with The
Washington Post)
"Presidential
Pardons"
Special
Citation:
Bradley
Keoun, Phil Kuntz, Bob Ivry, Craig Torres, Scott Lanman and
Christopher Condon
Bloomberg
News
"The
Fed's Trillion-Dollar Secret"
The Winners...
Matt
Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, Eileen Sullivan and Chris Hawley
Associated
Press
"NYPD
Intelligence Division"