Shorenstein announces 6 finalists for Goldsmith

Six entries have been chosen as finalists for the 2002 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, which will be awarded at a ceremony on Tuesday, March 12, at 8 p.m., at the ARCO Forum of Public Affairs, Kennedy School of Government.

The Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting honors journalism that promotes more effective or ethical government conduct, the creation of public policy, or the practice of politics by disclosing excessive secrecy, impropriety, and mismanagement, or instances of particularly commendable government performance. Winners receive a $25,000 prize.

This year’s finalists

Sumana Chatterjee and Sudarsan Raghavan of Knight-Ridder, Washington Bureau, for “A Taste of Slavery.” Reporters concluded that slavery tainted nearly every chocolate product after finding enslaved boys harvesting cocoa on remote Ivory Coast farms.

Bob Drogin, Josh Meyer, Craig Pyes, William C. Rempel, and Sebastian Rotella of the Los Angeles Times for “Revealing Terrorism.” This team of reporters covered the trial of Ahmed Ressam, following their leads to the little-known international terrorist network to which Ressam belonged, its links to Osama bin Laden, and the high level of terrorist threat facing the United States.

David Willman of the Los Angeles Times for “The New FDA: Partnership with Deadly Risk.” Willman helped to save many lives by exposing the deadly risks of prescription drugs approved by the FDA under a new market-friendly mandate.

Sean Holton, et al., of the Orlando Sentinel for “Exposing the Flaws.” The Sentinel ran a yearlong series investigating what went wrong with the Florida vote in 2000, how many votes might have been lost, and how the system could be repaired for the future.

Duff Wilson and David Heath of the Seattle Times for “Uninformed Consent.” This report documented patients at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center who had been deprived of essential information about the risks of clinical trials in which they had been enrolled.

David S. Fallis, Craig Whitlock, and April Witt of the Washington Post for “A Blue Wall of Silence – False Confessions.” A yearlong investigation determined that the Prince George’s County Police Department shot and killed more people, per officer, than any other large police force in the United States. It led to 11 civil rights investigations into allegations of interrogation room coercion.

The Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy will host the ceremony, which will also feature the presentation of the Goldsmith Book Prizes, a special award to The New York Times, and the Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism.