The American Mirage: How Reality TV Upholds the Myth of Meritocracy
The 2026 Goldsmith Academic Book Award honors Eunji Kim, a political scientist at Columbia University, for The American Mirage: How Reality TV Upholds the Myth of Meritocracy. Kim’s book tackles a central paradox of contemporary American life: even as income inequality rises and social mobility declines, large numbers of Americans continue to believe fervently in the “American Dream.” Drawing on innovative research, Kim argues that some of the most powerful stories sustaining this belief are not found in editorials or political speeches, but in “success-oriented” entertainment such as American Idol, Shark Tank, and America’s Got Talent. These programs function as modern Horatio Alger tales, repeatedly dramatizing the idea that grit and talent alone separate winners from losers, that structural barriers can be overcome, and that the system is fundamentally fair because ordinary people really do “win big.” Kim shows that exposure to these rags-to-riches narratives strengthens viewers’ faith in upward mobility and, in turn, increases their acceptance of economic inequality and weakens support for the social safety net. The American Mirage offers a compelling and unsettling account of how popular culture shapes political beliefs, making it a distinguished contribution to our understanding of media, democracy, and inequality.
Troublemaker: The Fierce, Unruly Life of Jessica Mitford
The 2026 Goldsmith Trade Book Award honors Carla Kaplan, a professor at Northeastern University, for Troublemaker: The Fierce, Unruly Life of Jessica Mitford. Kaplan’s vivid biography recounts the extraordinary life of Jessica “Decca” Mitford, the rebel Mitford sister who broke with her aristocratic, fascist-leaning family to embrace radical politics and a career in crusading journalism. In the second half of the twentieth century, Mitford became one of America’s most celebrated muckrakers, exposing abuses in prisons, hospitals, correspondence schools, prosecutors’ offices, and beyond. Her landmark 1963 bestseller, The American Way of Death, revealed predatory practices in the funeral industry and helped spur consumer-protection reforms. Troublemaker is both a page-turning life story—from a British estate to the Spanish Civil War to Mitford’s fearless reporting in the United States—and a powerful account of how unapologetically adversarial journalism can challenge entrenched institutions and protect the public.
Orwell’s Ghosts: Wisdom and Warnings for the Twenty-First Century
Laura Beers, a British history professor at American University, critically examines Orwell’s enduring relevance through issues like populism, tyranny, and inequality, while challenging the obsession with his famed works, Animal Farm and 1984. She dissects Orwell’s critique of capitalism’s social prejudices and inequality, highlighting his democratic socialism and defense of individual liberty. Orwell’s experience in the Spanish Civil War convinced him that violence sometimes has a role in social change but argued that equality ultimately rests on acts aimed at creating social unity. Beers’ analysis seeks to clarify Orwell’s writings in the context of modern events, providing insights that policymakers and political activists would be wise to heed.
Who Is Government?
The inaugural Goldsmith Explanatory Prize for reporting on government is awarded to The Washington Post Opinions series “Who Is Government?” created by Michael Lewis.
Seven writers — Michael Lewis, Casey Cep, Dave Eggers, John Lanchester, Geraldine Brooks, Sarah Vowell, and W. Kamau Bell — were “set loose on the federal bureaucracy” and given the same brief: find a story about public service. Each piece, taken together, helped shine a light on the value of government work and the dedicated civil servants that are rarely written about or celebrated:
While there has been plenty of press coverage of the Supreme Court’s landmark court decisions over the years, the Justices themselves have long evaded the kind of public scrutiny endured by elected officials and other public servants. Seeking to shed light on one of the most opaque branches of government, this reporting team used a series of unconventional reporting techniques – cross-referencing highly redacted records from U.S. Marshals with flight data, hunting down fishing licenses, private yacht schedules, photos on social media and interviews with hundreds of people around the world – to reveal a system that enables judges to thwart ethical oversight and conceal conflicts of interest as they rule on the country’s most consequential legal cases. Their reporting prompted investigations by the Senate Judiciary and Finance committees and led to the Supreme Court’s adoption of a code of conduct for the first time in its history.
News Hole: The Demise of Local Journalism and Political Engagement
The decline of local newspapers is a familiar story. Hundreds of them have shut down, with the loss of thousands of jobs. But News Hole shows that the problem is more than one of locked doors and laid off workers – when a local paper goes, so does the community’s civic health. Lower turnout in local elections, less responsive local officials, less civic engagement, wider polarization, less social trust, weaker community ties, less awareness of what’s going on a City Hall, the school board, and the county commission – in short, when a newspaper goes out of business, the community stops acting like a community. Danny Hayes, Professor of Political Science at George Washington University, and Jennifer L. Lawless, Leone Reaves and George W. Spicer Professor of Politics and Professor of Public Policy at the University of Virginia, aided by dozens of student research assistants, analyzed fifteen years of reporting in more than 200 local newspapers, while also studying election returns, opinion surveys, and other indicators to track community engagement to show that without solid journalism, democracy itself is at risk.
Power Play: How utilities paid a consulting group that infiltrated local news media, attacked clean energy foes and intimidated public officials
A months-long investigation by NPR’s David Folkenflik and Floodlight’s Mario Ariza and Miranda Green uncovered just how far two major power companies went to try to make sure their political foes didn’t dampen their profits or hold them accountable. The reporting, building off of an earlier Floodlight investigation with the Orlando Sentinel, found that Alabama Power and Florida Power & Light paid consulting company Matrix LLC millions over a decade, resulting in undisclosed payments to news outlets that cast the utilities in a positive light and were critical of those who questioned their power. A freelance ABC News producer was also hired to misleadingly represent herself and confront politicians over controversies relevant to Matrix clients. These revelations were followed by leadership changes at both power companies, internal investigations into their work with Matrix, as well as broad calls for transparency and reform. ABC News also severed ties with the freelance journalist. The story offers a rare window into the way power companies and consultants manipulate the democratic system, and the pressure local regulators and lawmakers confront if they seek to hold those corporations accountable, and what happens when local news erodes.
How Democracies Die
Is our democracy in danger? Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt have spent more than twenty years studying the breakdown of democracies in Europe and Latin America, and they believe the answer is yes. Democracy no longer ends with a bang—in a revolution or military coup—but with a whimper: the slow, steady weakening of critical institutions, such as the judiciary and the press, and the gradual erosion of long-standing political norms.
Foreign Contributions Riddle
Illegal Democratic Campaign Contributions
The team of reporters from the Los Angeles Times uncovered large contributions to the Democratic party by influential Asian donors. Subsequent to the reportage, the Democrats returned nearly $1.2 million in donations and sparked a nationwide debate on campaign finance reform.
