The Goldsmith Prize for Explanatory Reporting

About the Goldsmith Prize for Explanatory Reporting:

Criteria

Criteria

The annual Goldsmith Prize for Explanatory Reporting honors journalism that helps average citizens better understand the way the United States government works.

Exemplary submissions will dive into a societal or governance problem, and use a solutions-focused lens to describe how government can work most effectively and efficiently to solve that problem. They will illuminate the nitty gritty of governing – the people, systems, structures, and policies that layer together to make a government work, and, when it doesn’t, helping us understand why.

Entries from small and mid-size news publications and comparable broadcast/online outlets are encouraged. Submissions that qualify for both may be nominated for both the Goldsmith Investigative Reporting Prize and the Explanatory Reporting prize, but may only win prize money for one. The selection process and judging committees for the two prizes are separate. Both are overseen by the Shorenstein Center’s faculty director and staff.

Prize Money

The winning entry receives $15,000. No other cash awards are given for this prize. Prize money is paid directly to credited authors, editors, producers, or other members of the team that created the winning entry, not to their organizations. Prize money can be distributed to organizations only in circumstances where documented organizational ethics rules dictate that employees cannot receive prize payments. In these cases the expectation is that the reporting team will participate in decisions about how the money is spent, and that it will go to the direct and additive benefit of the reporters and their work.