Shorenstein Center Releases Finalists for Journalism Prize

The Kennedy School of Government’s Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy announced this year’s finalists for the prestigious Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting last week.

Six finalists—journalists from the Knight-Ridder news service, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Orlando Sentinel and the Seattle Times—are up for the $25,000 prize, which is awarded for the year’s best investigative reporting that encourages ethics in government, politics and public policy.

David Willman of the Los Angeles Times, winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting, is among the finalists for his investigative report on prescription drugs.

Willman exposed the risks of the prescription drug Rezulin, an oral diabetes treatment that had been hastily approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

“I was wired to be curious about unintended consequences,” he said, “I saw Rezulin as a helpful window through which to get a view of the new paradigm of prescription drug review and approval.”

Willman said that the risks of being an investigative reporter involved investing “enormous” time in stories that did not always pan out.

“There was a great deal of defensiveness at the higher level of the FDA,” he said, but overall, he said he felt “that there was a great deal of appreciation that someone would take the time to seriously examine the life and death consequences of decisions that are made.”

Among the finalists, Duff Wilson of the Seattle Times is the only former recipient of the prize. He previously received the award in 1998 for his report on the use of hazardous waste as fertilizer.

“I was thrilled to be named again,” Heath said.

This year, he and co-writer David Heath reported on patients who had been involved in clinical trials without being informed of the risks at Seattle’s prestigious Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

“The Hutchinson Center is very defensive,” he said, adding that families of six of the patients are now suing the caner center for damages and that his files may have to be subpoenaed.

Wilson said he was tipped off to the unethical research practices when a doctor at the cancer center wrote a letter to the Seattle Times documenting the abuse.

Another finalist, Sean Holton of the Orlando Sentinel, reported on the Florida vote in the 2000 presidential election and said yesterday that he was honored to be considered alongside the other candidates.

Holton’s reporting focused on possible errors in the vote count in Florida and was part of a joint effort between the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Orlando Sentinel.

“It was two-tiered effort, and it was a lot of work with the national news media consortium,” he said.

Holton was part of the team that projected nine different scenarios about what went wrong in Florida.

Other finalists include Samantha Chatterjee and Sudarsan Raghavan, who reported on the problems of slavery in the Ivory Coast, Bob Drogin and team who wrote about terrorism activities and David S. Fallis and team who investigated the excess use of force by the police in Maryland’s Prince George’s County.

The prize will be awarded on March 12 at the Kennedy School of Government.