Kennedy School Center Awards Reporters

In recognition of the social impact of their investigative reporting, select journalists were presented with the annual Goldsmith Awards in a ceremony last night.

The Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, two Goldsmith Book Prizes, and the Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism were awarded last night in a ceremony hosted by the Joan Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics, and Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government.

The Goldsmith Awards Program, which was established in 1991, honors journalistic works that promote change in government conduct and public policy.

The two Book Prize winners were Matthew S. Hindman, for “The Myth of Digital Democracy,” and former Shorenstein Fellow John M. Hamilton, for “A History of American Foreign Reporting.”

The career award went to Frontline Executive Producer David Fanning, who delivered the keynote address and described his vision for Frontline and the future of broadcast journalism.

The investigative reporting prize went to Raquel Rutledge of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for her year-long series “Cashing in on Kids.” Rutledge’s articles exposed the corruption and fraud in Wisconsin’s child care program, leading to the passage of new laws aimed at eliminating criminal activities in the daycare business.

“As these stories circulate, [the everyday people] can realize that they can make a difference—not journalists, but the people that come forward,” Rutledge said in an interview with The Crimson. “The sources for my stories are people who risked their careers and livelihoods to tell their stories. So the credit goes to them.”

Alison M. Kommer, coordinator of the Goldsmith Awards and staff assistant at the Shorenstein Center, said that the judges considered criteria such as “suitability, degree of difficulty in investigative reporting, execution, and actual and potential impact on public policy in the United States” as they evaluated the works of journalism.

Funded by an annual grant from the Goldsmith Fund of the Greenfield Foundation, the award program provides cash prizes of $5,000 and $25,000 to the winners of the Goldsmith Book Prize and Investigative Reporting Prize, respectively.

The winners and finalists of the awards are scheduled to participate in the Goldsmith Seminar, “The Present and Future of Investigative Reporting,” at HKS today.