Honors a single story or series that uncovered significant and impactful news based on the reporters’ own investigation and which advances and serves the public interest.

Jump to:

• Micro Division — Winner: The Margin
• Small Division — Winner: The Center for Collaborative Investigative Journalism
• Medium Division — Winner: PublicSource
• Large Division — Winner: The Marshall Project, Reveal (PRX), Mother Jones, USA Today

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Best Investigative Journalism Award – Micro division

The Margin

A River of Deception: Historical Documents Reveal How Seattle City Light’s Dams Deprived the Skagit River of Fish, Impacting the Upper Skagit Tribe’s Treaty Rights for Over a Century by Rico Moore, Bryce Cracknell, Chona Kasinger

The Margin scoured historical documents and detailed how, for more than a century, Seattle’s City Light Department misrepresented the environmental impact of its dams in the Skagit River. The news outlet also explained how the federal government failed to act on the  Upper Skagit Tribe’s behalf when construction on the dams began. 

“The reporting was excellent, and the story expertly and clearly told,” one judge said. Another judge described it as “gold-standard investigative journalism.” 

Read the Winning Work

A River of Deception

Finalists

• The Margin, Eroding Indigenous Sovereignty: How Climate Change Complicates the Fight for Tribal Nations to Prove Who They Are, Ottavia Spaggiari, Ko Bragg, Chona Kasinger
• The Objective, The Editor of a New York City Newspaper Bullied Reporters for Years. Then, He Was Promoted, Alexis Allison

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Best Investigative Journalism Award – Small division

The Center for Collaborative Investigative Journalism

Democracy Deferred

In this investigative series, the Center for Collaborative Investigative Journalism raises questions about the legitimacy of Nigeria’s 2023 presidential election. The series, produced by journalists from about a dozen Nigerian newsrooms, incorporates investigative reporting, data analysis and visual storytelling. And while it focuses on the current status and future of democracy in Africa’s most populous nation, it has broader implications: One judge called the reporting a “timely and ominous piece that foreshadows America’s slide into authoritarianism.”

This was “far and away the best entry I’ve read,” one judge commented. CCIJ used “copious amounts of data to illuminate the stakes and consequences when democracy becomes a farce.” 

Read the Winning Work

Broken Promises: Altered voting tallies, poor electoral oversight casts doubt over Nigeria’s presidential elections

Beyond the Facade: Unveiling the Violence in Nigeria’s ‘Peaceful’ Presidential Elections

Truth under fire: The multi-front assault on facts during the 2023 Nigerian election

Faces to their Names: Nigeria’s False Information Merchants 

All Roar and No Bite: Exposing Nigeria’s Paper Tiger Election Laws

Finalists

• The Pulp, Community for Profit, Michael Cast
• MindSite News, Fateful Encounters: Reporting on Policing and Mental Health, Josh McGhee, Melissa Dai, Glendalys Valdes, Sela Breen, Kari Lydersen
• InvestigateWest, Savior Complex, Wilson Criscione, Kelsey Turner

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Best Investigative Journalism Award – Medium division

PublicSource

EQT’s Gas Play: There is Something Wrong Under New Freeport by Quinn Glabicki

“This story has it all,” an INNYs judge said of Quinn Glabicki’s reporting for PublicSource. The story includes “the human impact, a smoking-gun video obtained from a records request, and a class-action lawsuit that cites this reporter’s coverage,” the judge continued. 

Glabicki investigated how EQT, a corporation based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania that is the nation’s largest producer of fracked natural gas, pledged to tackle climate change while its fracking operations harmed rural communities in northern Appalachia.

Judges praised how the reporting clearly details a complex issue. “The reporter crafts a narrative that is both accessible and powerful, stripped of unnecessary jargon and overloaded context,” one judge said. “The journalist includes only the most essential information, giving readers a clear, informed view of the issue through the voices of those most affected.”

The stories are “a brilliant example of the power of local reporting.”

Read the Winning Work

There is something wrong under New Freeport

New Freeport residents in court demanding clean water from EQT

Finalists

• Jewish Currents, Defunding Dissent, Will Alden
• The Narwhal, Inside the TC Energy Tower, Matt Simmons, Mike De Souza, Fatima Syed, Sharon J. Riley
• Injustice Watch, The Tenant Trap, Alejandra Cancino, Maya Dukmasova

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Best Investigative Journalism Award – Large division

The Marshall Project, Reveal (PRX), Mother Jones, USA Today

She Ate a Poppy Seed Salad Just Before Giving Birth. Then They Took Her Baby Away by Shoshana Walter

Hospitals use inexpensive — and often faulty — urine drug screens to identify newborns affected by drugs in the womb. And each year, “tens of thousands of infants are reported annually to authorities for in utero drug exposure, with no guarantee that the underlying tests are accurate,” according to The Marshall Project’s winning investigative report. The investigation reflects interviews with “dozens of patients, medical providers, toxicologists and other experts, and collected information on more than 50 mothers in 22 states who faced reports and investigations over positive drug tests that were likely wrong,” The Marshall Project reported. The news outlet also “pored over thousands of pages of policy documents from every state child welfare agency in the country.”

That effort resulted in an in-depth examination of how a false positive on a drug test, from innocuous sources such as poppy seeds or decongestants, can lead to officials taking newborns from parents.

“Every pregnant woman in America ought to read this,” one judge said. “This story should be posted in every birthing room as a cautionary tale for medical personnel to verify before reporting a mother for drug use.”

Read the Winning Work

She Ate a Poppy Seed Salad Just Before Giving Birth. Then They Took Her Baby Away.

Hospitals Gave Patients Meds During Childbirth, Then Reported Them For Positive Drug Tests

She Ate a Poppy Seed Salad. Child Services Took Her Baby. (Podcast)

Finalists

• Center for Public Integrity, Mother Jones, Reveal, PRX, 40 Acres and a Lie, Alexia Fernández Campbell, April Simpson, Pratheek Rebala, Jennifer LaFleur, Nadia Hamdan, Roy Hurst, Cynthia Rodriguez, Jamilah King, Mc Nelly Torres, Wesley Lowery, Peter Newbatt Smith, Al Letson
• The Texas Tribune, Texas’ Border Wall, Zach Despart, Yuriko Schumacher, Uriel J. García
• The 74, Unwelcome to America, Jo Napolitano