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The 2018 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Local Reporting

Finalist: Jason Grotto, Sandhya Kambhampati and Ray Long of Chicago Tribune and ProPublica Illinois

For deep reporting that included analysis of more than 100 million electronic tax records to show how systemic favoritism and political neglect influenced assessments at the expense of the working class and poor in majority black and Latino neighborhoods.

Nominated Work

Biography

Jason Grotto, a reporter for ProPublica Illinois, specializes in quantitative analysis, using databases, statistics and mapping to ferret out corruption, negligence and bad public policy. Previously, he worked as an investigative reporter for the Chicago Tribune and the Miami Herald. He has reported on the pension crisis in Chicago and Illinois and led a Gerald Loeb Award-winning investigation on Chicago Public Schools’ disastrous use of auction-rate securities. He has uncovered fraud in federal poverty programs, problems in Iraq war contracting and flaws in the Chicago Housing Authority's Plan for Transformation. He was a 2015 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, where he studied municipal finance. Other honors include a Chicago/Midwest Emmy Award, an Investigative Reporters and Editors Award and the Society of Environmental Journalists Award. He earned a master's degree in journalism from the University of Missouri in 2000 and a bachelor's degree in U.S. history from the University of Oregon in 1995.

Sandhya Kambhampati is a data reporter at ProPublica Illinois focusing on analyzing statistics, databases and public records. Before she joined ProPublica, she was a Knight-Mozilla fellow at Correctiv, an independent, nonprofit newsroom in Berlin. At Correctiv, she was on a reporting team that published an investigation into the German nursing home system that prompted discussion across the country of how nursing homes should be evaluated and won the Deutsche Reporter Preis for Innovation. She also published an e-book during her fellowship on newsroom processes. Before that, she was a database reporter at the Chronicle of Higher Education, where she reported on college administrative pay and athletics. Her co-reported series on college athletic subsidies won the 2015 Education Writers Association Award for Data Journalism.

Ray Long is an investigative reporter for the Chicago Tribune. He played a key role in the paper's Dangerous Doses series, a finalist last year for the Pulitzer Prize in Public Service after finding pharmacies frequently failed to warn patients about harmful and fatal drug interactions. The series won top awards from APME, the National Press Club, the National Headliner Awards, Barlett & Steele, Gerald Loeb and SABEW along with finalist recognition from IRE, ASNE and the Goldsmith Prize competition. He previously worked in the paper’s Illinois Capitol bureau, where he exposed corruption, pork-barrel abuses, pension scams and political scandals. Long, a former president of the press association at the Illinois statehouse, covered six governors, including two who went to prison. He formerly ran the Associated Press bureau in Springfield; covered Chicago City Hall, the Cook County Board, courts and state government for the Chicago Sun-Times; and covered local, state and federal beats for the Peoria Journal Star. Long was inducted into the Public Affairs Reporting Hall of Fame at the University of Illinois Springfield in 2008. A year later, he was inducted into the journalism Hall of Fame at Eastern Illinois University and won EIU’s reporter of the year award.

Winners

Prize Winner in Local Reporting in 2018:

Staff of The Cincinnati Enquirer

For a riveting and insightful narrative and video documenting seven days of greater Cincinnati's heroin epidemic, revealing how the deadly addiction has ravaged families and communities. Local Reporting

Finalists

Nominated as finalists in Local Reporting in 2018:

Staff of The Boston Globe

For a poignant and illuminating exploration of the city's fraught history of race relations that went beyond the anecdotal, using data to demonstrate how racism infiltrates every institution and aspect of city life.

The Jury

Rene Sanchez(Chair)

Executive Editor

Greg Burton

Executive Editor

Lee Ann Colacioppo

Editor

Jane Harrigan

former Professor and Journalism Director

Sherrie Marshall

Executive Editor

Debra Adams Simmons

Executive Editor, Culture

Hollis Towns

Executive Editor

Winners in Local Reporting

2017

The Salt Lake Tribune Staff

For a string of vivid reports revealing the perverse, punitive and cruel treatment given to sexual assault victims at Brigham Young University, one of Utah’s most powerful institutions.
2016

Michael LaForgia, Cara Fitzpatrick and Lisa Gartner

For exposing a local school board's culpability in turning some county schools into failure factories, with tragic consequences for the community. (Moved by the Board from the Public Service category, where it was also entered.)
2014

Will Hobson and Michael LaForgia

For their relentless investigation into the squalid conditions that marked housing for the city's substantial homeless population, leading to swift reforms.
See All Local Reporting

2018 Prize Winners

Investigative Reporting

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.
See All 2018 Winners