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The 2017 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Explanatory Reporting

Finalist: Chattanooga Times Free Press, by Joan Garrett McClane and Joy Lukachick Smith

For an examination of the income inequality hiding behind Chattanooga’s rise as the shining star of the South – reporting that combined data, research and human stories to render a full picture of poverty.

Nominated Work

March 31, 2016
The Poverty Puzzle

Biography

Joan Garrett McClane has been a reporter for the Chattanooga Times Free Press in Tennessee since 2007. In her time covering the people of the Tennessee Valley, she's written about a Baptist pastor torn between his faith and his gay son, a prostitute trying to reconcile with the young son she left behind and a locally famous drunk who was exiled from the city by a judge. In 2015, McClane was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for a series she co-wrote about the inner city's "no snitch" culture and how it contributes to growing violence in Chattanooga. The year before, McClane was awarded the Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists. She also received the Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism and was named a finalist for both the Livingston Award and the American Society of Newspaper Editors' award for distinguished writing on diversity.

McClane grew up in a suburb of Birmingham, Ala., and studied journalism at the University of Alabama, where she received her bachelor's and master's degrees.

Before coming to the Times Free Press, she wrote for The Shelby County Reporter, The Tuscaloosa News, The Anniston Star and the Hartford Courant.

Joy Lukachick Smith is an reporter at the Chattanooga Times Free Press. Since 2009, she's covered crime and court systems in North Georgia and rural Tennessee, landed an exclusive in-prison interview with a former cop convicted of killing his wife and exposed impropriety in an FBI-led, child-sex online sting. In 2014, Smith won the Malcolm Law Memorial Award for Investigative Reporting. She also won first place in the Tennessee Press Association for best news reporting and investigative reporting for her series on murders and corruption in Georgia's state prison system. Raised near the Bayou, Smith's hometown is along the outskirts of Baton Rouge, La. She has a bachelor's degree in mass communication from Louisiana State University.

 

Winners

Prize Winner in Explanatory Reporting in 2017:

International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, McClatchy and Miami Herald

For the Panama Papers, a series of stories using a collaboration of more than 300 reporters on six continents to expose the hidden infrastructure and global scale of offshore tax havens. (Moved by the Board from the International Reporting category, where it was entered.) Explanatory Reporting

Finalists

Nominated as finalists in Explanatory Reporting in 2017:

Julia Angwin, Jeff Larson, Surya Mattu, Lauren Kirchner and Terry Parris Jr. of ProPublica

For a rigorous examination that used data journalism and lucid writing to make tangible the abstract world of algorithms and how they shape our lives in realms as disparate as criminal justice, online shopping and social media.

Staff

For a deep and sensitive exploration of gender worldwide, using remarkable photography, moving video and clear writing to illuminate a subject that is at once familiar and misunderstood.

The Jury

Gilbert Bailon(Chair)

Editor

Neela Banerjee

Senior Reporter

Jane Harrigan

Former Professor of Journalism

Deborah Henley

Editor

Scott Klein

Deputy Managing Editor

Shazna Nessa

Director of Journalism

Geordie Wilson

Publisher

Winners in Explanatory Reporting

2015

Zachary R. Mider

For a painstaking, clear and entertaining explanation of how so many U.S. corporations dodge taxes and why lawmakers and regulators have a hard time stopping them.
2014

Eli Saslow

For his unsettling and nuanced reporting on the prevalence of food stamps in post-recession America, forcing readers to grapple with issues of poverty and dependency.
2013

Staff

For its penetrating look into business practices by Apple and other technology companies that illustrates the darker side of a changing global economy for workers and consumers.
See All Explanatory Reporting

2017 Prize Winners

Feature Writing

C. J. Chivers

For showing, through an artful accumulation of fact and detail, that a Marine’s postwar descent into violence reflected neither the actions of a simple criminal nor a stereotypical case of PTSD.
Commentary

Peggy Noonan

For rising to the moment with beautifully rendered columns that connected readers to the shared virtues of Americans during one of the nation’s most divisive political campaigns.
Criticism

Hilton Als

For bold and original reviews that strove to put stage dramas within a real-world cultural context, particularly the shifting landscape of gender, sexuality and race.
Editorial Writing

Art Cullen

For editorials fueled by tenacious reporting, impressive expertise and engaging writing that successfully challenged powerful corporate agricultural interests in Iowa.
See All 2017 Winners