For a distinguished example of audio journalism that serves the public interest, characterized by revelatory reporting and illuminating storytelling, Fifteen thousand dollars ($15,000).
Staff of Pablo Torre Finds Out
For a pioneering and entertaining form of live podcast journalism that investigated how the Los Angeles Clippers seemingly evaded the NBA’s salary cap rules by funneling money to a star player through an environmental startup.
Winning Work
September 3, 2025
September 11, 2025
September 18, 2025
Finalists
Nominated as finalists in Audio Reporting in 2026:
Azeen Ghorayshi and Austin Mitchell of The New York Times
For “The Protocol,” their comprehensive investigation of youth gender medicine, exploring its origins and uses, helping to illuminate one of the most controversial policy debates of our time.
Valerie Bauerlein, Heather Rogers, Colin McNulty, Nathan Singhapok and Rachel Humphreys of The Wall Street Journal and Spotify Studios
For “Camp Swamp Road,” which uses extraordinary archival audio to investigate a 2023 fatal shooting and the flawed implementation of stand-your-ground laws.
The Jury
The Jury
Joe Richman(Chair)
Founder and Executive Producer, Radio Diaries
Robin Amer
Freelance Editor, Chicago
Robert Friedman
Senior Editor, Investigations, Bloomberg News
Joel Lovell
Co-Founder/Executive Editor, Please & Thanks Productions, Brooklyn, NY
Tasneem Raja
Editor-in-Chief, The Oaklandside
Sean Rameswaram
Host and Editorial Director, Today Explained
Connie Walker*
Assistant Professor and Velma Rogers Research Chair, School of Journalism, Toronto Metropolitan University
Winners in Audio Reporting
Staff of The New Yorker
For their “In the Dark” podcast, a combination of compelling storytelling and relentless reporting in the face of obstacles from the U.S. military, a four-year investigation into one of the most high-profile crimes of the Iraq War–the murder of 25 unarmed Iraqi civilians in Haditha.
Staffs of the Invisible Institute and USG Audio
For a powerful series that revisits a Chicago hate crime from the 1990s, a fluid amalgam of memoir, community history and journalism.
Staff of Gimlet Media, notably Connie Walker
Whose investigation into her father’s troubled past revealed a larger story of abuse of hundreds of Indigenous children at an Indian residential school in Canada, including other members of Walker’s extended family, a personal search for answers expertly blended with rigorous investigative reporting.
Staffs of Futuro Media, New York, N.Y. and PRX, Boston, Mass.
For “Suave,” a brutally honest and immersive profile of a man reentering society after serving more than 30 years in prison.
2026 Prize Winners
Saher Alghorra, contributor, The New York Times
For his haunting, sensitive series showing the devastation and starvation in Gaza resulting from the war with Israel.
Jahi Chikwendiu of The Washington Post
For a heart-wrenching and achingly beautiful photo essay on a young family welcoming the birth of their first child as the father is slowly dying from cancer.
Dake Kang, Garance Burke, Byron Tau, Aniruddha Ghosal and Yael Grauer, contributor, of Associated Press
For an astonishing global investigation into state-of-the-art tools of mass surveillance, created in Silicon Valley, advanced in China and spreading worldwide before returning to America for secret new uses by the U.S. Border Patrol.
M. Gessen of The New York Times
For an illuminating collection of reported essays on rising authoritarian regimes that draw on history and personal experience to probe timely themes of oppression, belonging and exile.