INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING

Judged by Deborah Nelson, The Seattle Times, a 1997 Pulitzer Prize winner for investigative reporting.

First Place
Terry Greene Sterling, Phoenix New Times, "The Money Changers"

"This extraordinary [first place] project stood out not only for its disturbing findings about a church organization, but also for the remarkable reporting that went into untangling such a complex web. While not an easy-to-read narrative, its strong current of facts carried me through the increasingly outrageous series of stories. Many reporters would have been deterred by a topic so difficult to report and even harder to write. But we live in a complex world, and it's critically important for journalists to rise to the challenge. Congratulations to the reporter who did it and the newspaper that published it."

Second Place
Enric Volante, Inger Sandal, Rhonda Bodfield, The Arizona Daily Star, "The Desert Hills series"

"It took aggressive reporting and a court order to uncover the dangerous pattern of problems at a psychiatric treatment center where a patient died. But the Star made sure neither the state nor the center could dismiss Edith Campos' death as an isolated incident."

Third Place
Susie Steckner, Jodie Snyder, Heather Ratcliffe, The Arizona Republic, "The A-Z Women's Center series"

"The live birth of a baby and the death of a patient at an abortion clinic attracted much attention in Phoenix last year. This newspaper's investigation of what went wrong stood out for its heart-breaking detail and interstate tracking of the people behind the clinic."