The $25,000 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting has been awarded to journalists from The Miami Herald by the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government. In a ceremony on Thursday, March 11, Manny Garcia, Dan Keating, Joseph Tanfani, and Andres Viglucci were presented the Prize for their series, "Dirty Votes: The Race for Miami Mayor."

Launched in 1991, the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting honors journalism that promotes more effective and ethical conduct in government, the making of public policy, or the practice of politics by disclosing excessive secrecy, impropriety and mismanagement, or instances of particularly commendable government performance.

" The Miami Herald deserves the honor for its dogged and determined reporting of the fraud and corruption in the most recent Miami elections," said Marvin Kalb, director of the Shorenstein Center. "This is the second time the Miami Herald has won a Goldsmith Prize, and it deserves it."

The other finalists for the Prize for Investigative Reporting were William Allen, Kim Bell, and Andrew Skolnick of The St. Louis Post- Dispatch for "Health Care Behind Bars"; Will Englund and Gary Cohn of The Baltimore Sun for "The Shipbreakers"; Alix Freedman of The Wall Street Journal for "Population Bomb"; Bart Gellman of The Washington Post for "Shell Games: The Search for Iraq¹s Hidden Weapons"; and Michael Isikoff of Newsweek for "President Clinton and the Monica Lewinsky Scandal."

In addition, the $5,000 Goldsmith Book Prize was awarded to James Hamilton, assistant professor of public policy and economics at Duke University, for Channeling Violence: The Economic Market for Violent Television Programming (Princeton University Press, 1998). The Goldsmith Book Prize is awarded to the book that best attempts to improve the quality of government or politics through an examination of the press and politics in the formation of public policy.

"Hamilton has researched and written a pioneering work of scholarship," said Kalb. "It is the kind of book that will be referred to for years to come."

The Goldsmith Awards Program also grants monetary awards for postgraduate research on the intersection of press and politics. This year 14 people were given Goldsmith Research Awards, three of whom are Harvard-affiliated. The winners from Harvard are Eric K. Jackson, Taeku Lee, and Felicia Mebane. The other winners are Karen Zucker Callaghan, University of Massachusetts, Boston; Rosalee A. Clawson, Purdue University; Ann Gordon, University of Southern California; Sallie Hughes, Tulane University; Kim Fridkin Kahn, Arizona State University; P.H. Longstaff, Syracuse University; Mike McCauley, University of Maine; Jonathan Morris, Purdue University; Richard H. Shultz, Tufts University; Sonja Moore Siler, Temple University; and Adam F. Simon, University of Washington.

In addition to these monetary prizes, the Goldsmith Program also presents the Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism, which was given this year to Lesley Stahl, co-editor of 60 Minutes and a CBS News correspondent.