Finalist: Debbie Cenziper, Megan Rose and Brandon Roberts of ProPublica

Debbie Cenziper is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and nonfiction author who writes for ProPublica’s national desk. She spent more than a decade at The Washington Post. Over 30 years, Cenziper’s stories have changed laws, prompted congressional and FBI investigations, and helped secure more funding for affordable housing, mental health care and public schools. She has won dozens of journalism awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for local reporting about corrupt affordable housing developers in Miami. She is the author of “Citizen 865: The Hunt for Hitler’s Hidden Soldiers in America” and “Love Wins: The Lovers and Lawyers Who Fought the Landmark Case for Marriage Equality,” named one of the most notable books of the year by the Post. She is also a professor at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

Megan Rose is a national reporter for ProPublica, whose reporting involves exposing how regular Americans are harmed by abuses of those in power. She investigates complex issues and spends significant time getting to know the people affected to tell in-depth, nuanced stories. She's covered wide-ranging issues from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to criminal justice. She won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting for a series examining how Navy and Marine Corps leadership failed to heed warnings and implement reforms before several fatal accidents. Her work has resulted in several falsely convicted men clearing their records, congressional inquiries and high-level leadership changes. She graduated from the University of Missouri's School of Journalism.
 

Brandon Roberts is a journalist on ProPublica’s news applications team, where he performs technically sophisticated investigations and builds tools in the public interest. For the past decade he has specialized in applying computational techniques to watchdog and data-heavy journalism projects for organizations like Oregon Public Broadcasting, WHYY and the Seattle Times. Roberts’ international collaborations have been supported by the Investigative Journalism for Europe fund and the Association of British Science Writers. He has worked with academic institutions, like the London School of Economics, and presented at conferences like NICAR and the Computation + Journalism Symposium. His work has been cited by the ACLU, resulted in closing tax loopholes and spurred congressional calls for government transparency. His tools have enabled countless reporters at the local and national level.