'Seattle Times' Receives Investigative Business Journalism Award

Posted Wednesday, October 1, 2008 12:00 am

By: E&P Staff The Seattle Times was runner-up to BusinessWeek magazine in the second annual Barlett & Steele Awards for Investigative Business Journalism announced today by the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism.

"Prisoners of Debt" was the BusinessWeek series receiving the $5,000 first-place prize. "The Favor Factory" by the Times' David Heath and Hal Bernton was awarded $2,000 for second place.

The four-part Times series uncovered thousands of purchases the U.S. Congress forced the military to make in recent years, including a $4.5 million Navy vessel that sits unused at a Seattle pier. The investigation of secretive Congressional earmarks included the scanning of hundreds of documents and a year spent building a database that directly linked this waste to political contributions.

Winners will be honored during a Nov. 19 ceremony at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University in Phoenix, where the Reynolds Center is located.

The awards are named for the renowned investigative business journalism team of Don Barlett and Jim Steele, who have received two Pulitzer Prizes and many other honors.

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'Seattle Times' Receives Investigative Business Journalism Award

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