Reporters Honored For Investigation

A trio of reporters from the Wall Street Journal won the Shorenstein Center’s Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting yesterday, taking home $25,000 for a series that exposed the abuse of stock options in executive compensation.

In winning the 17th annual award, the reporters bested finalists from the Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, Seattle Times, and Washington Post.

The Journal’s team of Charles Forelle, James Bandler, and Mark Maremont laid bare a scheme in which companies timed their options grants to dates when their stock prices were particularly low without informing shareholders. More than 130 companies, including UnitedHealth Group and Apple, are under federal investigation in the wake of the Journal’s series, and more than 60 executives have been terminated.

“The judges felt that, in a rich field of investigative reporting, the stock option story was the most important,” Alex S. Jones, director of the Shorenstein Center, said in a statement. “This story had a huge impact on the business community, and its force is ongoing.”

One Journal story published in July fingered large companies such as Home Depot, Merrill Lynch, and T. Rowe Price for rushing to grant options to their executives as stock prices plunged in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

At the awards presentation yesterday, Daniel Schorr, the legendary voice of public radio, was also honored with a lifetime achievement award.

—Staff writer Paras D. Bhayani can be reached at pbhayani@fas.harvard.edu.