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Becky Pallack. "First Magnus: Boom to bust in three weeks." Arizona Daily Star.
Judges' Comments:
In a year full of impressive coverage of the mortgage crisis, Becky Pallack's story stood out for its clarity and timing. Pallack carefully and compellingly explains the complex issues underlying the crisis long before most readers would have heard of "securitization" and "Alt-A loans," while making clear the issue's importance both locally and nationally. The package was particularly impressive for its being written in just two days.
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Dan Kelley. "Is the city growing or stretching?" Corpus Christi Caller-Times.
Judges' Comments:
Using a combination of well-chosen data and strong anecdotes, Dan Kelley challenges the perception that if new homes are being built and bought that the city must be growing. His opening anecdote, about a church that's following its worshipers south, dramatically paints the picture, and Kelley follows up with lucid examples of how the changing city affects residents. Several maps help tell the story without getting bogged down in numbers.
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George Talbot. "Several factors are key to deal." Press-Register (Mobile, Ala.).
Judges' Comments:
When a major steel-maker announced that Mobile County, Ala., was one of two finalists to be the site of a major new manufacturing plant, George Talbot went beyond the usual guessing game to learn the factors that would truly drive the decision. Talbot draws on recent history and an impressive range of sources to tell the story in a way that remains locally rooted without cheering for the home team. No matter the ultimate outcome, the Press-Register's readers were well equipped to understand the decision and the role their local leaders played in shaping it.
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Ben Casselman - The Wall Street Journal
Mary Kuntz - BusinessWeek
Kyle Pope - Conde Nast Portfolio
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Rick Rothacker and David Ingram. “Is This a Conflict?” The Charlotte Observer.
Judges' Comments:
With meticulous reporting and analysis, The Observer presented the questions raised by a system that allows the state’s treasurer to collect campaign contributions from the very investment firms he will choose between when awarding the state’s business. In doing so, the paper raised an important issue for public policymakers and offered citizens relevant insights into a man who is likely to run for governor.
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Rebecca Mowbray. "Same House. Same Repairs. Same Insurer. Why Different Prices?" The Times-Picayune (New Orleans).
Judges' Comments:
It’s hard to find a fresh angle in post-Katrina coverage, but the Times-Picayune did so with this story about differing reimbursement levels for wind and flood damage. The reporting was thorough and the writing made insurance interesting!
[4544EN] PDF
Bill Vlasic and Sharon Terlep. "Inside Story." Detroit News.
Judges' Comments:
In Detroit, few business stories last year were more important than the UAW contract negotiations. After agreements were reached with the Big Three auto companies, The News took the initiative to find out what had really happened behind the scenes. The reconstruction of events was told crisply and presented attractively.
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Carol Marie Cropper - Dallas Morning News
Pam Luecke - Washington and Lee University
Ray Estrada - Pacific Coast Business Times
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Kristi Heim. “China's Eco-city.” The Seattle Times.
Judges comments:
The story was exemplary in using a local angle to tackle a global phenomenon: It highlighted the global environmental fall-out of China’s industrial boom as it followed Seattle capital venture capitalist, architects and city planners into the workshop of the world. Good use of graphics with a map pinpointing the country’s most polluted cities and charts comparing China’s pollution with other major economies. The spread of pictures was excellent, with a shot of two Seattle venture capitalists with a smokestack in the background showing that business pictures do not have to be boring.
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Pete Carey. “Harsh Side of the Boom.” San Jose Mercury News.
Judges comments:
This story was ahead of the curve in detailing how fraud had permeated the overheated mortgage industry and foretold how the subprime mess would spread around the country. It put real faces on the issue, had the nitty-gritty details that make a story sing and explained the mechanics of the fraudulent lending schemes very well. And it focused on a group of people who often fall below the radar screen – Latinos were lured into mortgages they couldn’t afford through abusive “affinity’’ lending. The deep reporting came with pictures, creative graphics such as actual copies of mortgage contracts and a wonderful tip box for home owners finding themselves in a similar pickle. And the story had impact: The mortgage broker behind the scheme went out of business and consumers flooded help lines listed in the article with calls. A real winner!
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Jeffrey Tomich. “Bet the Farm.” St. Louis Post-Disptach.
Judges comments:
A very topical take-out on how the world-wide biofuel boom is playing out in the heartland. The story had lovely details such as farmers pocketing tens of thousands of dollars by investing in ethanol plants and on-the-scene color. Solid graphics and good pictures helped tell the story. And it provided balance by highlighting the downsides of the boom.
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Jack Reerink - Reuters
Gertha Coffee - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Craig Harris - Seattle Post-Intelligencer
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Kate Kelly. "Bear CEO's Handling of Crisis Raises Issues." The Wall Street Journal.
Judges' Comments:
This scoop-filled profile of Bear Stearns CEO James Cayne was not only the
talk of Wall Street for days after it appeared, but it may also ultimately have cost
Cayne his job. The story, put together in a few months, painted a vivid
picture of a firm in crisis and the disengaged CEO who may have overstayed his tenure in the top job.
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Gretchen Morgenson. "Crisis Looms in Mortgages." The New York Times.
Judges' Comments:
This entry was, in the words of one judge, "extraordinarily prescient." Morgenson¹s clear and confident writing was one of the earliest warnings about the subprime mortgage debacle to come. Though several mortgage lenders had closed by the time Morgenson's column appeared, it took quite a bit of enterprise to connect the dots to Wall Street, the housing market and the entire U.S. economy.
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David Barboza. "A Chinese Reformer Betrays his Cause, and Pays." The New York Times.
Judges' Comments:
Barboza took a corruption case--the prosecution and subsequent execution of China¹s top food and drug official--and produced a narrative that was impossible to put down. The story was timely, coming out amid a flurry of news reports about product safety in China and just three days after the official's execution. Barboza's work is especially enterprising given the many challenges associated with reporting in China. We were also impressed by the touching photographs and sidebar, "For 2 children, ban of a drug came too late," which humanized the local problem of illegal drug production in China.
[4592EN] PDF (2.2 MB), JPG
Mark Vamos - Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University, Dallas
Ed Dufner - Bloomberg News
Stephanie N. Mehta - Fortune Magazine
Grove Potter - The Buffalo News
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Dan Kaplan and Mark Mensheha. "American Invasion: What's Driving The Gold Rush To English Soccer?" Street & Smith's SportsBusiness Journal.
Judges' Comments:
This is an in-depth look at wealthy American businessmen buying up professional English soccer teams. It’s an eminently readable look at the surprisingly large amounts of money at stake and the uneasy feelings of Brits who feel clumsy feet trampling one of their most beloved cultural institutions. The presentation is bolstered by numerous graphics and sidebars.
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Ron Leuty. "The Fight Of His Life: Bay Area Tech Execs And VCs Rally To Aid One Of Their Own Battling A Rare Disease." San Francisco Business Times.
Judges' Comments:
This could have been one of those so-familiar stories: The quick feature about a person fighting a debilitating disease where the principal rationale for publication is that the victim is a prominent (choose one), athlete, politician or businessperson. But this story goes well beyond the usual, showing how the high-tech community mobilized for a well-known executive and raised $6 million to research new treatments for Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease. The story uses the executive’s predicament to explain the rare disease and the current state of research and fund-raising. The writer also reveals, in a sidebar, a personal interest: His mother died of Creutzfeld-Jakob disease.
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Dan Monk and Tom Demoropolis. "Dark Side Of Progress: The Transformation Of UC Has Taken More Of A Financial Toll Than Many In The Campus Community Realize." Business Courier (Cincinnati).
Judges' Comments:
This is a great example of public service. The story shows that while many are impressed by the $350 million in improvements made to the University of Cincinnati campus, mismanagement and poor decision-making have crippled the university’s finances. The story has full details to support its conclusions.
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Peter Sleight - Hartford Courant
J. T. Madore - Newsday
Tony Cronin - The Day (New London, Conn.)
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John Lippert. "The Fall of Detroit: Insider Sees Errors of 1970s in GM Strike." Bloomberg News.
Judges' Comments:
Veteran journalist, and former autoworker, John Lippert produced a fine tale about the decline of the American automobile manufacturer. Lippert stepped back and offered an honest assessment of his own auto plant experiences. His first-person perspective reminded older, and told younger, readers how U.S. carmakers and their workers contributed to the industry’s decline. You walk away from the story knowing there were no winners during the waning days of America’s industrial age.
[4167EN] PDF
John Schoen. "Mortgage Mess." MSNBC.com.
Judges' Comments:
With thorough reporting and clear writing, John Schoen produced an authoritative and comprehensive early warning about what is now known as the mortgage-lending crisis. Schoen used appropriate anecdotes throughout his story to support the longer tale of a financial disaster in the making. Schoen’s work demonstrates that deep reporting, coupled with knowledge of the topic, remains the key to producing quality journalism.
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Melissa Davis. "Shattered Hopes." TheStreet.Com.
Judges' Comments:
Melissa Davis uses the compelling story of Randi Reichle-Guyton to illustrate how hundreds of recipients of artificial spinal discs are now suffering with pain and battling the manufacturers for financial relief. In telling the story of Reichle-Guyton, Davis avoids medical jargon. The story works because it is straightforward, compact and easy to read.
[4414EN] PDF
James Mallory - Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Robert Trigaux - St. Petersburg Times
Binyamin Appelbaum - Boston Globe
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