2019 Awards

The 2019 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting was awarded on March 12, 2019, to J. David McSwane and Andrew Chavez of the Dallas Morning News, for their series “Pain and Profit.” In addition to the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, the 2019 Goldsmith Awards ceremony included awards for the Goldsmith Book Prize, and the Goldsmith Career Award was presented to Washington Post Executive Editor Marty Baron, who gave the keynote talk in conversation with Nancy Gibbs and Nicco Mele.

Ceremony Date

March 12, 2019

Note

The Goldsmith Prizes are funded by an annual gift from the Goldsmith Fund of the Greenfield Foundation.

2019 Award and Prize Winners

  • Winner, Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting

    Pain and Profit

    J. David McSwane and Andrew Chavez, Dallas Morning News

    In reporting “Pain and Profit” the Dallas Morning News found that thousands of sick and disabled Texans were being denied life-sustaining drugs and treatments by the private health insurance companies hired by the state to manage their care. While these private contractors made billions of dollars from the corporate management of taxpayer-funded Medicaid, some of the most vulnerable Texans were denied critical services, equipment and treatments, often with profoundly life-altering results.

    View the story

  • Winner, Goldsmith Career Award

    Marty Baron

  • Winner, Goldsmith Book Prize: Trade

    How Democracies Die

    Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, Crown Publishing

  • Winner, Goldsmith Book Prize: Academic

    Censored: Distraction and Diversion Inside China’s Great Firewall

    Margaret E. Roberts, Princeton University Press

  • Winner, Goldsmith Book Prize: Academic

    The Internet Trap: How the Digital Economy Builds Monopolies and Undermines Democracy

    Matthew Hindman, Princeton University Press

Finalists for Goldsmith Investigative Reporting Prize

  • Finalist, Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting

    Trump’s Hush Money

    Michael Rothfeld, Joe Palazzolo, Nicole Hong, Rebecca Davis O’Brien, Rebecca Ballhaus, Alexandra Berzon, Lukas I. Alpert, Michael Siconolfi, Carmel Lobello, Shelby Holliday, Jarrard Cole, Anthony Galloway, and Joel Eastwood, The Wall Street Journal

  • Finalist, Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting

    Criminal Justice in Elkhart, Indiana

    Christian Sheckler and Ken Armstrong, South Bend Tribune and ProPublica

  • Finalist, Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting

    Zero Tolerance

    Ginger Thompson, Michael Grabell, Topher Sanders, Melissa Sanchez, Duaa Eldeib, Jodi S. Cohen, Alex Mierjeski, Claire Perlman, Ken Schwencke, Adriana Gallardo, and ProPublica staff, ProPublica

  • Finalist, Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting

    Toxic City: Sick Schools

    Barbara Laker, Wendy Ruderman, Dylan Purcell, Jessica Griffin, and Garland Potts, The Philadelphia Inquirer

  • Finalist, Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting

    Trafficked in America

    Daffodil Altan, Andrés Cediel, and Abbie VanSickle, The Investigative Reporting Program (IRP) at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism and FRONTLINE, PBS

  • Finalist, Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting

    Alabama’s ‘Beach House Sheriff’

    Connor Sheets, Alabama Media Group

Judges

Nicco Mele, Director of the Shorenstein Center, chaired the meeting. Judges recused themselves from voting on entries from their employers. The 2019 Goldsmith Investigative Reporting Prize judges were:

Tim Bailey

Director of Programming at the Shorenstein Center

Michael Duffy

Deputy op-ed editor, The Washington Post; 1998 Goldsmith Prize winner

Nancy Gibbs

Former editor of TIME Magazine; current Edward R. Murrow Professor of Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School

Erica Green

Education and education policy correspondent for The New York Times

Mike Greenfield

Trustee of the Greenfield Foundation (financial supporters of the Goldsmith Awards Program); Co-Founder and CEO of Change Research

Esther Htusan

Correspondent for the Associated Press; 2016 Goldsmith Prize winner

Nina Martin

Reporter for ProPublica; 2018 Goldsmith Prize winner

Melissa Segura

Investigative reporter for BuzzFeed News; 2018 Goldsmith Prize finalist

Scott Siegler

Managing partner of Mediasiegler, Inc.; former president of Sony Pictures Television