Finalist: Dake Kang and the Staff of Associated Press
For a penetrating investigation of China's state secrecy and its fatal consequences, reflected in the country’s early response to the coronavirus outbreak and in human rights abuses against the Uighurs.
Nominated Work
April 15, 2020
December 3, 2020
December 30, 2020
August 31, 2020
March 5, 2020
Biography
Dake Kang is a multiformat journalist in the AP’s Beijing bureau who has covered China for the past three years. Kang was instrumental in winning the AP the prestigious Osborn Elliott Prize in 2019 primarily for coverage of human rights abuses against the Uighurs.
Winners
Prize Winner in Investigative Reporting in 2021:
Matt Rocheleau, Vernal Coleman, Laura Crimaldi, Evan Allen and Brendan McCarthy of The Boston Globe
For reporting that uncovered a systematic failure by state governments to share information about dangerous truck drivers that could have kept them off the road, prompting immediate reforms.
Investigative Reporting
Finalists
Nominated as finalists in Investigative Reporting in 2021:
Margie Mason and Robin McDowell of Associated Press
For their compelling examination of the abusive practices of international palm oil producers, including forced labor targeting women and children, culminating in congressional oversight and an import ban.
The Jury
The Jury
Therese Bottomly(Chair)
Editor and Vice President of Content, The Oregonian/OregonLive
Adam Davidson
CEO, Three Uncanny Four Productions
Gabriel Escobar
Editor/Senior Vice President, The Philadelphia Inquirer
Michele Matassa Flores
Executive Editor, The Seattle Times
David Jackson
Senior Investigative Reporter, Better Government Association
Flynn McRoberts
Managing Editor, U.S. Bureaus/Deputy Investigations Editor, Bloomberg News
Ron Nixon
Global Investigations Editor, Associated Press
Winners in Investigative Reporting
Brian M. Rosenthal of The New York Times
For an exposé of New York City’s taxi industry that showed how lenders profited from predatory loans that shattered the lives of vulnerable drivers, reporting that ultimately led to state and federal investigations and sweeping reforms.
Matt Hamilton, Harriet Ryan and Paul Pringle of the Los Angeles Times
For consequential reporting on a University of Southern California gynecologist accused of violating hundreds of young women for more than a quarter-century.
Staff of The Washington Post
For purposeful and relentless reporting that changed the course of a Senate race in Alabama by revealing a candidate’s alleged past sexual harassment of teenage girls and subsequent efforts to undermine the journalism that exposed it.
Eric Eyre
For courageous reporting, performed in the face of powerful opposition, to expose the flood of opioids flowing into depressed West Virginia counties with the highest overdose death rates in the country.
2021 Prize Winners
Robert Greene of the Los Angeles Times
For editorials on policing, bail reform, prisons and mental health that clearly and holistically examined the Los Angeles criminal justice system.
Wesley Morris of The New York Times
For unrelentingly relevant and deeply engaged criticism on the intersection of race and culture in America, written in a singular style, alternately playful and profound.
Michael Paul Williams of the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch
For penetrating and historically insightful columns that guided Richmond, a former capital of the Confederacy, through the painful and complicated process of dismantling the city's monuments to white supremacy.
Nadja Drost, freelance contributor, The California Sunday Magazine
For a brave and gripping account of global migration that documents a group’s journey on foot through the Darién Gap, one of the most dangerous migrant routes in the world.