The Center for Public Integrity is a finalist for the Online Journalism Awards’ coveted general excellence award.
The nonprofit investigative news organization is one of three finalists in the small newsroom category, alongside Honolulu Civil Beat and The Markup. Finalists in the award’s larger categories include The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Public Integrity investigates inequality. In the case it made to ONA for the award, the newsroom noted that exposing and explaining inequality “requires an approach to investigative reporting that engages the people closest to it.”
“Rather than the traditional investigative reporting notion of catching a bad guy breaking the rules, it demands an examination of the rules themselves: Systems of government and society that are working exactly as designed, but by design create or widen inequality,” Public Integrity Editor-in-Chief Matt DeRienzo wrote in the newsroom’s entry.
Public Integrity investigations in the past year have dug into voting inequities in every state, tax policies that increase economic inequality, assaults on women truckers because of insufficient safeguards in training programs, homeless students falling through the cracks of a law intended to help them and the lack of safe appropriate housing for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, among other stories.
“I’m so proud of the work that Public Integrity’s staff has done in the past year and continues to do to reveal inequality across a wide span of topics,” said Senior Editor Jennifer LaFleur. “Their work reflects deep research, unique data analysis and rare efforts to make stories accessible to everyone.”
At last year’s Online Journalism Awards, Public Integrity won the pandemic reporting category, for a project about the COVID housing crisis reported with The Associated Press, and was a finalist in two other categories.
The awards are organized by the Online News Association, the world’s largest digital journalism association. The organization will name winners later this month and honor them at a ceremony in Philadelphia Aug. 26.
Other Public Integrity work this year has been honored with the Paul Tobenkin Award, a National Headliner Award, the Sigma Award recognizing the world’s best data journalism, Mental Health America’s 2023 Media Award, Dateline Awards, the Gracie Awards and nominations for Peabody and Ambie awards.
Founded in 1989, the Center for Public Integrity is one of the oldest nonprofit news organizations in the country and is dedicated to investigating systems and circumstances that contribute to inequality in the United States.