ProPublica and The Washington Post won the ninth annual University of Florida Award for Investigative Data Journalism at the 2022 Online News Association (ONA) Online Journalism Awards ceremony on Sept. 24 in Los Angeles. The winners will each receive a $7,500 prize and an expense-paid trip to Florida to lead full-day workshops.

ProPublica was honored in the Small/Medium Newsroom category for “Sacrifice Zones: Mapping Cancer-Causing Industrial Air Pollution.” The series used data analysis to reveal more than 1,000 hot spots of toxic air pollution that the EPA has allowed to take root across America, elevating the cancer risk of more than a fifth of the nation’s population, including 256,000 people exposed to threats the agency deems unacceptably high. It captured how the EPA has failed to protect the public, not just through weak policies, but through calculated choices recounted on the record by insiders.

The Washington Post received the Large Newsroom honor for Unaccountable, an investigative series examining how much cities pay to resolve police misconduct allegations such as excessive force and illegal search and seizure. These settlement amounts are rarely disclosed publicly. Reporters Steven Rich, Keith L. Alexander and Hannah Thacker spent more than a year filing public records requests and combing through court documents to connect nearly 40,000 payments to specific officers.

The award prizes were established by a gift from the estate of Lorraine Dingman to the College. Representatives from the winning news organizations will visit the College in the spring as journalists-in-residence to discuss the project and work with both students and faculty on investigative journalism techniques.

Posted: October 10, 2022
Category: College News
Tagged as: 2022 UF Investigative Data Journalism Award, ONA