Congratulations to our 2023 honorees! The Best in Business Awards attracted 1,103 entries from 181 news organizations, ranging from international, national and regional news outlets to specialized business publications.
Banking/Finance
Large division
Winner – A collaboration of International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, OCCRP and Paper Trail Media; Cyprus Confidential
Spencer Woodman, David Kenner, Tanya Kozyreva, Matei Rosca, Dean Starkman, Neil Weinberg, Delphine Reuter, Karrie Kehoe, Agustin Armendariz, Jelena Cosic, Jesús Escudero, Miguel Fiandor, Denise Ajiri, Scilla Alecci, Mike Hudson, Brenda Medina, Roy W. Howard Fellow Eve Sampson
Honorable Mention – Bloomberg News; Wall Street’s Housing Hustle
Heather Perlberg, Noah Buhayar, Tom Schoenberg, Ann Choi, Kara Wetzel, David Scheer
Medium division
Winner – A collaboration of the Center for Public Integrity and Pushkin Industries; The Heist: Land of Broken Promises
April Simpson, Joe Yerardi, Camille Peterson, Kiarra Powell, Gretta Cohn, Dan O’Donnell, Wilson Sayre, Sara Nics, Mc Nelly Torres, Jamie Smith Hopkins, Matt DeRienzo, Jane Sasseen, Keishel Williams, Lisa Yanick Litwiller, Ashley Clarke, Vanessa Lee, Charlie Dodge, Katherine Hapgood, Janeen Jones, Peter Newbatt Smith, Amanda Howell Whitehurst
Small division
Winner – The Information; Banking Fakes and Scams
Michael Roddan
Honorable Mention – Capital & Main; Dirty Money: U.S. Banks and the Climate Crisis
Marcus Baram
Best Range of Work
Large division
Winner – Bloomberg News; Josh Eidelson
Josh Eidelson
Honorable Mention – The Washington Post; From OnlyFans and Truth Social to War, Discord and Healthcare Data
Drew Harwell
Medium division
Winner – Time; Alana Semuels
Alana Semuels
Honorable Mention – Forbes Magazine; Alex Konrad
Alex Konrad
Small Division
Winner – Grist; Jake Bittle
Jake Bittle
Honorable Mention – Pittsburgh Business Times; Paul J. Gough’s manufacturing, health care coverage
Paul J. Gough
Honorable Mention – Crain’s New York Business; Nick Garber
Nick Garber
Breaking News
Large division
Winner – The Wall Street Journal; The Failure of First Republic
Rachel Louise Ensign, Eliot Brown, AnnaMaria Andriotis, Gina Heeb, Andrew Ackerman, David Benoit, Nick Timiraos, Telis Demos, Aaron Back, Ben Eisen
Honorable Mention – The Washington Post; UAW goes on strike
Jeanne Whalen, Lauren K. Gurley, Rachel Lerman, Aaron Gregg, Alyssa Fowers, Eli Tan, Toluse Olorunnipa, Jeff Stein, Adela Suliman, Abha Bhattarai, Ellen Francis, Amy B. Wang, Meryl Kornfield, Hanna Zakharenko
Medium division
Winner – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; U.S. Steel to be sold
Evan Robinson-Johnson, Kris B. Mamula, Anya Litvak, Jonathan D. Salant, Ford Turner, Matt Rosenberg
Small division
Winner – The Information; OpenAI Fires Its CEO
Erin Woo, Anissa Gardizy, Aaron Holmes, Amir Efrati, Jon Victor, Stephanie Palazzolo, Kate Clark, Cory Weinberg
Honorable Mention – The Lever; How Corporate Cash Derailed Americans’ Safety
David Sirota, Julia Rock, Rebecca Burns, Matthew Cunningham-Cook
Commentary/Opinion
Large division
Winner – Bloomberg Opinion; Magnetic North
Liam Denning
Honorable Mention – The New York Times; The New New World
Li Yuan
Medium division
Winner – MarketWatch; Trusts and Wills
Beth Pinsker
Honorable Mention – The Boston Globe; Shirley Leung
Shirley Leung
Small division
Winner – Crain’s Chicago Business; Joe Cahill commentary
Joe Cahill
Data Journalism
Large division
Winner – The New York Times; American Insights
Emily Badger, Josh Katz, Robert Gebeloff, Ben Blatt, Larry Buchanan
Medium division
Winner – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution; American Dream for Rent
Brian Eason, Zachary Hansen, John Perry, Michael Kanell
Small division
Winner – HousingWire; The data behind the real estate industry’s upheaval in 2023
Will Robinson
Economics
Large division
Winner – The Wall Street Journal; Promise and Peril of America’s Manufacturing Revival
John Keilman
Honorable Mention – Los Angeles Times; How the remote-work revolution is changing California
Don Lee
Medium division
Winner – The Boston Globe; People Are Leaving
Janelle Nanos, Jon Chesto, Diti Kohli
Small division
Winner – THE CITY; Covering the NYC Economy
Greg David
Energy/Sustainability/Climate Change
Large division
Winner – Bloomberg Green; Water Grab In the US
Peter Waldman, Sinduja Rangarajan, Mark Chediak, Kyle Kim, Jeremy C.F. Lin, Leslie Kaufman, Linda Poon, Laura Bliss
Honorable Mention – The New York Times; Unchartered Waters
Hiroko Tabuchi, Mira Rojanasakul, Christopher Flavelle, Blacki Migliozzi, Eli Murray
Honorable Mention – Bloomberg Green; Capturing Carbon
Natasha White, Akshat Rathi, Stephen Stapczynski, Kevin Crowley, Coco Liu
Medium division
Winner – Nikkei Asia; Hydropolitics in Asia
Pak Yiu, Kiran Sharma, Sanskrita Bharadwaj, Faisal Mahmud, Lien Hoang
Honorable Mention – Detroit News; Guarding the Great Lakes
Carol Thompson
Small division
Winner – A collaboration of the Center for Public Integrity and Columbia Journalism Investigations; Toxic Labor
Janelle Retka, Samantha McCabe, Jiahui Huang, María Inés Zamudio, Jovi Dai, Kristen Lombardi, Mc Nelly Torres
Explanatory
Large division
Winner – Bloomberg News; How Russia Defied Sanctions to Keep Oil Funding Its War
Alaric Nightingale, Ben Bartenstein, Tom O’Sullivan, Chris Reiter, Will Kennedy, Julian Lee, Sharon Cho, Sam Dodge, Demetrios Pogkas
Honorable Mention – CNBC; China’s Corporate Spy War
Eamon Javers, Wally Griffith, Kathy Liu, Bria Cousins, Christie Gripenburg, Laura Measher, Candice Goldman, Allison E. Stedman, Elizabeth Kim, Peter Kourkoumelis
Honorable Mention – Bloomberg Businessweek; Corporate America Promised to Add More People of Color. It Actually Did.
Jeff Green, David Ingold, Raeedah Wahid, Cedric Sam, Daniela Sirtori-Cortina, Rebecca Greenfield, Chloe Whitaker, Elizabeth Fournier, Catherine Larkin
Medium division
Winner – STAT; The Obesity Revolution
Elaine Chen, Matthew Herper, Nicholas Florko, Andrew Joseph, Damian Garde
Honorable Mention – Miami Herald; The Foreclosure Franchise
Ben Wieder, Shirsho Dasgupta, Sheridan Wall, Amelia Winger
Honorable Mention – The Boston Globe; The $600,000 Problem
Catherine Carlock, Tim Logan
Small division
Winner – Minnesota Reformer; Sugarland: Inside Minnesota’s massive, powerful sugar industry
Madison McVan, Nicole Neri
Honorable Mention – Raw Story; Monuments to me
Mark Alesia
Honorable Mention – Endpoints News; Rare disease, common tragedy: How family-funded treatments stalled out at biopharma companies
Jared Whitlock
Feature
Large division
Winner – The New York Times; Immigrant Labor
Hannah Dreier
Honorable Mention – Financial Times; The bizarre and brutal final hours of FTX
Joshua Oliver
Honorable Mention – Los Angeles Times; When ‘Shark Tank’ dreams become nightmares
Stacy Perman
Honorable Mention – Bloomberg Businessweek; The Coke Can Conspiracy
Drake Bennett, Jordan Robertson
Medium division
Winner – A collaboration of OCCRP and Marshall Islands Journal; Chinese ‘Miracle Water’ Grifters Infiltrated the UN and Bribed Politicians to Build Pacific Dream City
Aubrey Belford, Kevin G. Hall, Martin Young, Dan McGarry, Bernadette Carreon, Rimon Rimon, Giff Johnson, Hilary Hosia, Indunil Usgoda Arachchi, Beauregard Tromp, Chikezie Omeje
Honorable Mention – KFF Health News; How Insurance Roadblocks Leave Patients in the Lurch
Lauren Sausser
Honorable Mention – STAT; HCA doctors say its cost-cutting is endangering Appalachian patients — a warning for the whole U.S. health care system
Tara Bannow
Small division
Winner – Rest of World; Inside Foxconn’s struggle to make iPhones in India
Viola Zhou, Nilesh Christopher
Honorable Mention – The Information; Amazon’s After-Dark Delivery Dangers
Theo Wayt
Honorable Mention – The Information; Google’s Darkest Days
Becky Peterson
General Excellence
Industry/topic-specific publications
Winner – Endpoints News: Coverage of the US biotech and pharma industry
Jared Whitlock, Nicole Defeudis, Zach Brennan, Ryan Cross, Andrew Dunn, Max Gelman
Large division
Winner – Bloomberg News
Staff of Bloomberg
Medium division
Winner – STAT’s authoritative coverage of the business of health and medicine
Staff
Honorable Mention – Barron’s
Avi Salzman, Jacob Adelman, Angela Palumbo, Karishma Vanjani, Carleton English
Small division
Winner – Crain’s New York Business
Cory Schouten, Telisha Bryan, Anne Michaud, Amanda Glodowski, Jennifer Samuels, Aaron Elstein, Amanda D’Ambrosio, Nick Garber, C. J. Hughes, Jacqueline Neber, Eddie Small, Caroline Spivack, Buck Ennis, Carolyn McClain, Jason McGregor
Honorable Mention – Nashville Business Journal
Julia Masters, Adam Sichko, Eric Snyder, Joel Stinnett, Sophia Young
Government
Large division
Winner – The New York Times; Alone and Exploited
Hannah Dreier
Honorable Mention – The Wall Street Journal; Unpacking Bidenomics
Greg Ip
Honorable Mention – The Wall Street Journal; The Toxic Atmosphere at the FDIC
Rebecca Ballhaus
Medium division
Winner – A collaboration of KFF Health News and Cox Media Group; Overpayment Outrage
David Hilzenrath, Jodie Fleischer, Fred Clasen-Kelly
Honorable Mention – The Arizona Republic; Affordable housing crisis has ‘waitlist shoppers’ across US vying for few Arizona vouchers.
Juliette Rihl
Small division
Winner – A collaboration of Investigate Midwest and Flatwater Free Press; Pigs and Power
Sky Chadde, Yanqi Xu
Honorable Mention – Raw Story; Losing Track
Alexandria Jacobson
Health/Science
Large division
Winner – The Washington Post; Memory, Inc.
Christopher Rowland, Todd C. Frankel, Doug MacMillan, Yeganeh Torbati, Julie Zauzmer Weil, Peter Whoriskey, Steven Rich
Honorable Mention – The New York Times; Operating Profits
Katie Thomas, Sarah Kliff, Jessica Silver-Greenberg, Robert Gebeloff
Honorable Mention – The Wall Street Journal; Ozempic Inc.
Peter Loftus, Erich Schwartzel, Sune Engel Rasmussen
Medium division
Winner – STAT; Conflicts of interest are rampant between PBMs and consulting firms
Bob Herman
Honorable Mention – A collaboration of ProPublica and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; With Every Breath: Millions of Breathing Machines. One Dangerous Defect.
Debbie Cenziper, Michael D. Sallah, Michael Korsh, Evan Robinson-Johnson, Monica Sager, Margaret Fleming
Honorable Mention – STAT; Denied by AI: How Medicare Advantage plans cut off care for seniors
Bob Herman, Casey Ross
Small division
Winner – A collaboration of The Examination and The Museba Project; Indian companies are bringing one of the world’s most toxic industries to Africa. People are getting sick.
Will Fitzgibbon
Honorable Mention – AARP The Magazine; The $80 Million Health Care Fraud
Rene Ebersole
Innovation
Large division
Winner – Financial Times; Inside North Korea’s oil smuggling
Christian Davies, Primrose Riordan, Chan Ho-him, Steven Bernard, Dan Clark, Sam Joiner, Caroline Nevitt
Medium and small divisions
Winner – The Boston Globe; Can Gen-Z Make it in Boston?
Diti Kohli
International Reporting
Large division
Winner – Bloomberg Green; International Water Grab
Peter Waldman, Momar Niang, Katarina Hoije, Coco Liu, Luz Ding, Martin Ritchie, Sinduja Rangarajan, Angus Whitley, Sybilla Gross, Elena Mejia, Raeedah Wahid
Honorable Mention – A collaboration of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, NBC News, Reuters, The Guardian and The New Yorker; Trafficking Inc.
Katie McQue, Pramod Acharya, Michael Hudson, Maggie Michael, Alastair Gee, Bernice Yeung, Abigail Higgins, Shyam Karki, Delphine Reuter, Andy Lehren, Anna Schecter, Tanka Dhakal, Eman Alqaisi, Mara Kessler, Hoda Osman
Honorable Mention – The Washington Post; The Hidden Toll of Electric Cars
Rachel Chason, Ilan Godfrey, Rebecca Tan, Dera Menra Sijabat, Joshua Irwandi, Evan Halper
Medium division
Winner – A collaboration of the Miami Herald and International Consortium of Investigative Journalists; Deforestation, Inc.
Scilla Alecci, Shirsho Dasgupta
Small division
Winner – The Outlaw Ocean Project; China: The Superpower of Seafood
Ian Urbina, Daniel Murphy, Joe Galvin, Maya Martin, Susan Ryan, Austin Brush, Jake Conley, Stephan Foxwell
Investigative
Large division
Winner – Reuters; The Musk Industrial Complex
Marisa Taylor, Steve Stecklow, Norihiko Shirouzu, Hyunjoo Jin, Rachael Levy, Kevin Krolicki, Marie Mannes, Waylon Cunningham, Koh Gui Qing
Honorable Mention – Bloomberg News; America, Global Gun Pusher
Michael Riley, David Kocieniewski, Monte Reel, Jessica Brice, Eric Fan, Michael Smith, Chris Cannon
Honorable Mention – The Washington Post; Memory, Inc.
Christopher Rowland, Todd Frankel, Doug MacMillan, Yeganeh Torbati, Julie Zauzmer Weil, Peter Whoriskey, Steven Rich
Medium division
Winner – A collaboration of The Examination, Der Spiegel, Initium Media and Paper Trail Media; Smoking for the State: How China Became Addicted to its Tobacco Monopoly
Jason McLure, Jude Chan, Manyun Zou, Christoph Giesen, Corinna Cerruti
Honorable Mention – A collaboration of Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and ProPublica; With Every Breath: Millions of Breathing Machines. One Dangerous Defect
Michael D. Sallah, Debbie Cenziper, Michael Korsh, Evan Robinson-Johnson, Margaret Fleming, Monica Sager
Honorable Mention – A collaboration of Capital & Main and ProPublica; Checked Out: How L.A. Failed to Stop Landlords from Turning Low-Cost Housing into Tourist Hotels
Robin Urevich, Gabriel Sandoval
Small division
Winner – A collaboration of The Examination and The Museba Project; Indian companies are bringing one of the world’s most toxic industries to Africa. People are getting sick.
Will Fitzgibbon
Honorable Mention – K-12 Dive; The Education Department passes the buck on Title IX — and students pay the price
Naaz Modan, Julia Himmel, Shaun Lucas, Roger Riddell, Marcy Levin-Epstein, Greg Linch
Investing/Markets
Large division
Winner – Bloomberg Businessweek; The Private Credit Frenzy
Silas Brown, Paula Seligson, Davide Scigliuzzo, Neil Callanan, James Boxell, Paula Dwyer, Natasha Doff, Stephanie Stoughton
Honorable Mention – The Washington Post; How right-wing news powers the ‘gold IRA’ industry
Jeremy B. Merrill, Hanna Kozlowska
Medium division
Winner – Miami Herald; A Financial Hurricane
Ben Wieder, Jay Weaver
Small division
Winner – The Information; IPO Drama
Cory Weinberg, Maria Heeter, Becky Peterson
Honorable Mention – Coinage; He Stole $200 Million. He Gave It Back. Now He’s Ready to Explain Why.
Zack Abrams, Zack Guzman
Media/Entertainment
Large division
Winner – The New York Times; David Zaslav’s Grand Ambitions
Jonathan Mahler, James B. Stewart, Benjamin Mullin
Honorable Mention – Bloomberg Businessweek; The Unhappiest Place on Earth
Thomas Buckley
Medium and small divisions
Winner – Nikkei Asia; Bollywood’s gender revolution: Women are rewriting the rules
Jui Chakravorty, Surbhi Bhatia, Kiran Sharma, Sayan Chakraborty
Honorable Mention – Axios; Forbes’ Failed Financial Deal
Sara Fischer, Scott Rosenberg
Newsletter
Large division
Winner – Bloomberg Opinion; Money Stuff
Matt Levine
Honorable Mention – Los Angeles Times; Boiling Point
Sammy Roth
Medium division
Winner – Axios; Resilient economy prevents recession
Neil Irwin, Courtenay Brown, Javier David
Small division
Winner – The Information; Dealmaker
Kate Clark
Honorable Mention – Charter; Charter Briefing
Kevin Delaney
Personal Finance
Large division
Winner –Law360; Debt Firm’s Flameout a Cautionary Tale for Consumers
Daniel Connolly, Brandon Lowrey, Jon Hill, Allison Grande
Honorable Mention – Bloomberg Businessweek; Just How Bad Is the US Cost-of-Living Squeeze? We Did the Math
Reade Pickert, Jennah Haque
Medium division
Winner – Bloomberg Industry Group; Anatomy of a Tax Shelter: Maltese Pension Plans
Michael J. Bologna
Honorable Mention – Barron’s; Fixing the Retirement Crisis
Elizabeth O’Brien
Small division
Winner – Raw Story; Lawmakers, law breakers
Alexandria Jacobson, Dave Levinthal
Honorable Mention – Chicago Booth Review; Your Spending Habits Are All in Your Head
Rebecca Stropoli
Podcast/Audio
Large division
Winner – A collaboration of the Financial Times and Pushkin Industries; Hot Money: The New Narcos
Miles Johnson
Medium division
Winner – The Globe and Mail; Better for It
Kiran Rana, Alisha Sawhney, Kyle Fulton, Temur Durrani
Small division
Winner – Inc. Magazine; Computer Freaks
Christine Haughney Dare-Bryan
Honorable Mention – Investopedia.com; The Investopedia Express with Caleb Silver
Caleb Silver
Real Estate
Large division
Winner – The New York Times; Women in Real Estate
Debra Kamin
Honorable Mention – The Wall Street Journal; The Commercial Real-Estate Crisis and Its Fallout
Konrad Putzier, Shane Shifflett, Will Parker
Honorable Mention – Bloomberg News; Zombie Towers and the Debt Threat
Isis Almeida, Shruti Date, John Gittelsohn, Kara Wetzel, Kyle Kim, Sarah McGregor, Rachael Dottle, Natalie Wong, Jack Sidders, Shawna Kwan, Pat Regnier
Medium division
Winner – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Left to Rot: The City of Pittsburgh’s Wasteland of Unsafe, Abandoned Homes
Michael Korsh, Neena Hagen
Honorable Mention – A collaboration of Capital & Main and ProPublica; Checked Out: How L.A. Failed to Stop Landlords from Turning Low-Cost Housing into Tourist Hotels
Robin Urevich, Gabriel Sandoval
Small division
Winner – The Real Deal; Recipe for Fraud: Inside South Florida’s Under-regulated HOAs
Lidia Dinkova, Katherine Kallergis
Honorable Mention – Capital & Main; In Los Angeles, a Friendship Grows Out of Housing Strife
Jack Ross
Retail
Large division
Winner – The Wall Street Journal; Estee Lauder’s Succession Rift
Emily Glazer, Sabela Ojea
Medium division
Winner – Barron’s; Retail on the Front Lines
Catherine Dunn
Honorable Mention – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; The Fall of the Century
Neena Hagen
Small division
Winner – Rest of World; China: the world’s shopping cart
Peiyue Wu, Daniela Dib, Viola Zhou, Caiwei Chen, Lais Martins, Ester Christine Natalia, Damilare Dosunmu
Honorable Mention – Capital & Main; Striking Back
Gabriel Thompson, Venessa Wong, Christopher Salazar
Small Business
Large and Medium divisions
Winner – Fortune Magazine; Chief, the $5,800-per-year women’s networking startup, is worth $1 billion and has a waiting list of 60,000. Some members say the club isn’t living up to the hype
Katherine Dunn
Small division
Winner – Appleton Post-Crescent; Union Star’s Recovery
Katy Macek, Rebecca Loroff
Student Journalism
Stories for professional media outlets
Winner – Southern Methodist University; Elizabeth Guevara for The Dallas Morning News
Elizabeth Guevara
Honorable Mention – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; The Color of Wealth for Triangle Business Journal
Uma Bhat
Stories for student media outlets
Winner – Cronkite News at ASU; Soured on Sugar: Haitian workers fuel Dominican sugar industry, at great cost.
John Leos, Keetra Bippus, TJ L’Heureux
Technology
Large division
Winner – Reuters; US-China Tech War
Joe Brock, David Lague, Yimou Lee, James Pomfret, Dea Bankova, Julia Wolfe, John Shiffman, Joshua Schneyer
Honorable Mention – Bloomberg News; Huawei’s Breakthrough
Debby Wu, Vlad Savov, Allen Wan, Gao Yuan, Peter Elstrom, Ian King, Kurumi Mori
Medium division
Winner – Forbes Magazine; The AI Founder Taking Credit for Stable Diffusion’s Success Has a History of Exaggeration
Kenrick Cai, Iain Martin
Honorable Mention – The Guardian; ‘There is no standard’: investigation finds AI algorithms objectify women’s bodies
Hilke Schellmann, Gianluca Mauro
Small division
Winner – Triangle Business Journal; Ohnesorge tech coverage
Lauren Ohnesorge
Honorable Mention – The Story Exchange; As Anxiety Rates Soar, More Startups Promise a Way to Chill
Colleen DeBaise
The Business of Sports
Large division
Winner – CNBC; Inside Track: The Business of Formula 1
Sara Eisen, Wally Griffith, Kathy Liu, Meghan Lisson, Amanda Winograd, Christie Gripenburg, Steven T. Banton, Candice Goldman, Allison E. Stedman, Donna Burton, Elizabeth Kim, Dan Colarusso
Medium division
Winner – The Philadelphia Inquirer; Sixers propose building a new arena in downtown Philadelphia
Jeff Gammage
Small division
Winner – Denver Business Journal; Prime Investment: Inside CU Boulder’s big gamble on Deion Sanders
Angela Ufheil
Travel/Transportation
Large division
Winner – The New York Times; Flight Risks
Sydney Ember, Emily Steel
Honorable Mention – The Washington Post; Tesla Troubles
Faiz Siddiqui, Trisha Thadani, Rachel Lerman, Imogen Piper, Jeremy B. Merrill
Medium division
Winner – The Philadelphia Inquirer; Thomas Fitzgerald: Transportation Reporter
Thomas Fitzgerald
Honorable Mention – Portland Press Herald; Freight railroads police themselves and inspect their own tracks. Some say a disaster is inevitable.
Kay Neufeld
Small division
Winner – The Information; Convoy Goes Off the Road
Maria Heeter, Ann Gehan, Nick Wingfield, Theo Wayt
Video
Large division
Winner – The Wall Street Journal; Shadow Men: Inside Wagner, Russia’s Secret War Company
Denise Blostein, Jane Lytvynenko, Frank Matt, Emma Scott, Robert Libetti, Christopher S. Stewart, Rob Barry, Benoit Faucon, James V. Grimaldi, James Marson, Ben Weltman, Amanda Wills, Till Daldrup, Lisa Schwartz
Medium and small divisions
Winner – The Story Exchange; As Great Salt Lake Dries, Dust is New Danger
Sue Williams, Victoria Wang, Judith Vecchione, Christina Kelly, Sam Shinn, Noel Flego, Colleen DeBaise
